Due to the ongoing Coronavirus Pandemic, Ticketmaster revised its refund policy and it has fans upset. Before COVID-19, Ticketmaster would issue a refund “if your event is postponed, rescheduled or cancelled” but now cancellation is the only reason listed where you can get your money back. Although they also say there may be other instances in which refunds might be considered.
Ticketmaster has now issued a statement in regards to its change in policy.
An update on questions about event refunds.
— Ticketmaster (@Ticketmaster) April 15, 2020
We will continue to keep fans up to date on the status of events via email and our Covid-19 event portals.
US: https://t.co/hh1FGeQHRr
Canada: https://t.co/h2RcwY42qp pic.twitter.com/nKfrxgbf11
Joe Berchtold, the president of Live Nation, Ticketmaster’s parent company, also went on CNBC to discuss the refund situation and to talk about when he thinks events may start happening again. He said:
“I think there’s a lot of misperception about Ticketmaster. Ticketmaster doesn’t sell these tickets and sit on a mountain of cash. Ticketmaster sells tickets and gives the cash over to the venues where the events are held.
Before Ticketmaster [can] issue a refund on a rescheduled event it has to go to the venue, get that money; a lot of those venues are closed because of the current situation. They have to then sometimes go and get the money from somebody else, and so on down the chain. So it’s a pretty big process to go through and right now the volume of it is just so huge.”
The full interview can be seen below.
Stubhub was recently sued by a Wisconsin man for getting rid of its refund policy. It instead offered coupons worth 120% of the purchase price.
The special adviser to the director general of the World Health Organization recently said that he doesn’t expect a safe return to concerts, sporting events, and other large gatherings to happen for another 18 months.
