The Mexican government is looking to fine Ticketmaster after thousands of fans were turned away from Bad Bunny’s recent headline show at the 87,000-capacity Estadio Azteca.
The show took place earlier this month (December 9) and was meant to be sold out, but thousands of fans were denied entry by security after being told their tickets were apparently fake, duplicated or cancelled by Ticketmaster.
After footage of the gig started circulating on social media, Ticketmaster released a statement blaming a “high unprecedented number of fake tickets” for the debacle and promised to issue refunds to affected fans.
Now PROFECO, the Mexican government body in charge of consumer protection, has confirmed it will be issuing Ticketmaster with a fine over the incident, that could total as much as ten per cent of Ticketmaster Mexico’s 2021 revenue. Head of the agency Riccardo Sheffield has suggested the fine could amount to millions of pesos.
PROFECO has already confirmed at least 1600 instances of duplicated tickets and will be fining Ticketmaster for “overselling” the gig. They went on to say the ticketing giant were “solely responsible” for the chaos.
Ticketmaster has denied the claims, though is collaborating with the investigation.
FRAUDE, lo compre en ticketmaster y ya en la fila la chava de la entrada con una actitud prepotente y despota me dice que está clonado mi boleto, me lo arrebata y me lo rompe con saña; esto es un fraude, éramos miles saliendo @Claudiashein @Profeco @sanbenito @tourbadbunny pic.twitter.com/tyBO4UvTvj
— Juan Campos (@Juan_Camposss) December 10, 2022
Following the incident, Mexico’s president Andrés Manuel López Obrador has called on Bad Bunny to play a free show in the city’s Zócalo square and said the government would even cover some of the production costs.
It comes as Ticketmaster faces issues in North America, after its disastrous handling of selling tickets to Taylor Swift’s ‘Eras’ tour. The general sale was cancelled due to “extraordinarily high demand” and “insufficient remaining ticket inventory”.
More than a dozen fans are now suing Ticketmaster, alleging that the company violated the California Cartwright Act and the California Unfair Competition Law with American lawmakers also calling for legal action to be taken.
It’s since been confirmed that Ticketmaster has 170,000 unsold Taylor Swift tickets that will be distributed over the next few weeks.
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