Ticketmaster Say Gig Tickets Are “Underpriced” After The Smith Street Band Hit Out At Its Resale Site

Ticketmaster has responded to The Smith Street Band‘s claims that the ticketing platform is facilitating ticket scalping trough their resale site Ticketmaster Resale.

The band warned fans to not purchase tickets from scalpers after tickets to their shows were going for many times their original price. They also asked Ticketmaster, “why are you letting scalpers sell tickets to our shows at HUGELY INFLATED prices on your resale website?”

Ticketmaster originally responded on Twitter saying the account doesn’t handle the resale facility but the company has since provided a more lengthy statement.

In a statement to triple j, Ticketmaster wrote, “Ticketmaster acts on behalf of the promoter and venue, and doesn’t decide ticket prices for events.”

“Tickets are underpriced on the primary market, and resale will remain rife until artists price their tickets at what the market is willing to pay. We estimate that the resale market is worth $8bn globally, and as long as that kind of money is at stake and the use of bots is entirely legal, touts and bad actors will continue to be incentivised to cheat the system.”

It’s further denied claims that Ticketmaster was making tickets available on the resale sight before they were made available to the public.

“We have a zero tolerance for speculative selling,” a spokesperson wrote.

The Smith Street Band have seen the response and they reckon that Ticketmaster are, “still sucking.”

“Like what does this actually mean? We should charge more for tickets? It’s our fault for making things affordable,” they asked, directly screenshotting Ticketmaster’s response.

“Maybe someone at Ticketmaster can call me and explain what they mean. Til then, I’m going to the footy! I bought tickets from ticketek lol.”

There are still tickets to their shows on the Ticketmaster Resale website with tickets for the Melbourne show going for up to $345.

Watch: The Smith Street Band – ‘Birthdays’