Ticketmaster May Face Millions In Fines Following Bad Bunny Concert Backlash – HotNewHipHop

Hundred of fans were disappointed to learn that they were denied entry to Bad Bunny’s Mexico City concert over the weekend. After Ticketmaster blamed the issue on an “unprecedented number of fake tickets,” the brand is now looking at millions of dollars in fines.

According to Variety, director of the Federal Attorney’s Office for Consumers in Mexico (PROFECO) Ricardo Sheffield recently revealed that there have been around 1,600 requests for refunds.

He also confirmed that the ticket cancellations were not a result of “counterfeit,” but an “oversell” of tickets by Ticketmaster.

Sheffield reportedly suggested that the company issue fans a 100% refund with an added “20% compensation.” On the fine that Ticketmaster could soon face, he revealed that it could total a maximum of 10% of their 2021 earnings.

Stating that the fine is “to be determined [in] the following week,” he emphasized, “It is a very serious situation, quite delicate.”

READ MORE: Los Angeles Honors Bad Bunny With His Own Day

Bad Bunny ended his global World’s Hottest Tour in Mexico City last Friday night (Dec. 9) with fewer concertgoers than expected.

Releasing a statement shortly after, Ticketmaster stated that “the issues with access were the result of an unprecedented number of fake tickets, which led to a not normal agglomeration of people and an intermittent operation of our system.”

“The above generated confusion and complicated the entrance to the stadium,” the statement continued, “with the unfortunate consequence that people with legitimate tickets were denied access.”

Ticketmaster similarly faced backlash last month after Taylor Swift announced her highly-anticipated Eras Tour. The company issued an apology after their website crashed amid the concert’s pre-sale. 

Ticketmaster then canceled their general admission ticket sales, admitting in a statement that they experienced “extraordinarily high demands on ticketing systems and insufficient remaining ticket inventory to meet that demand.”

The U.S. Department of Justice recently announced an investigation into Live Nation, Ticketmaster’s parent company, with plans to discover if it “has abused its power over the multibillion-dollar live music industry.”

[Via]