Tickets recently went on sale for Neil Young’s globetrotting continuation of his Love Earth Tour with new band the chrome hearts, but he’s since had a change of heart about the ticketing system, announcing that Platinum tickets will no longer be available for his shows “very soon.”
In a post to his NYA Times Contrarian newsfeed, the singer-songwriter cited Robert Smith as having inspired the revision, pointing to an interview that the Cure’s frontman did with the Sunday Times last October. The conversation with journalist Jonathan Dean took place shortly after tickets went on sale for the Oasis reunion concerts in the UK and Ireland, with the band having claimed they “didn’t have any awareness” that Ticketmaster’s dynamic pricing model — which adjusts price based on consumer demand — was going to be used.
“It was easy to set ticket prices, but you need to be pig-headed,” Smith explained of his industry-shaking stand to keep the Cure’s 2023 tour affordable for all fans. “We didn’t allow dynamic pricing because it’s a scam that would disappear if every artist said, ‘I don’t want that!’ But most artists hide behind management. ‘Oh, we didn’t know,’ they say. They all know. If they say they do not, they’re either fucking stupid or lying. It’s just driven by greed.”
Young included Consequence‘s coverage of the story on his website, referring to it as “the story of the bad thing that has happened to concerts world-wide [sic]” and urging people to read it. “It’s this story that really helped me to realize that I have a choice to make and can make a difference for my music loving [sic] friends,” the musician wrote.
“My management and agent have always tried to cover my back on the road, getting me the best deals they could,” he continued. “They have tried to protect me and my fans from the scalpers who buy the best tickets and resell them at huge increases for their own profits. Ticketmaster’s High priced [sic] Platinum tickets were introduced to the areas where scalpers were buying the most tickets for resale. The money went to me. That did not feel right.”
Young went on to say that he has “decided to let the people work this out,” encouraging fans to “buy aggressively” when tickets first go on sale or else they’ll be stuck paying marked-up prices on the secondary market. Of Smith and the Cure drawing a hard line with Ticketmaster, Young added, “I think it was right.”
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