The Cure’s Robert Smith Continues His New Part-Time Job as Ticket-Price Enforcement Officer

Over the past few weeks it’s been mortifying, amusing and ultimately inspiring to witness the almost real-time reactions of the Cure’s founder/frontman Robert Smith to the hell-on-earth that is the concert-ticket purchasing process — and roll up his sleeves and do something about it.

While high prices, availability issues and a bevy of vaguely defined “service fees” could be expected for such box-office record-breakers as Taylor Swift and Bruce Springsteen, Smith was as surprised as anyone to see the prices on his group’s “Lost World” tour, its first for several years. While the group had managed to avoid such controversial policies as platinum packages and variable pricing, Smith was appalled to seehefty service fees added to the cost of “Verified Fan” tickets, which are intended to protect fans by keeping tickets out of the hands of scalpers, for the tour.

Smith dug in and managed to get $5 or $10 refunds for at least some of the ticket-buyers, and in another long series of all-caps tweets over the past few days, he has continued to basically manage the tickets sales of the latest round of shows.

“Everyone with a previously issued but unsuccessful Verified Fan code from any market will have first option to buy tickets – sales open fri 7th Apr @ 10am local time – limit of x4 tickets per person & all tickets non-transferrable. Vf fans will be notified on thu 6th Apr,” he wrote in one typical post.

However, he has continued his habit of speaking emotionally about the process even as he gets deep in the weeds. “FYI these are our Portland, OR ticket prices – a few of the front rows are a bit more expensive* (this helps ‘subsidise’ the cheaper tickets) $130.00 $110.00 $90.00 $70.00 $50.00 $30.00 usd… *front 14 rows go from $150.00 up to $230.00 (for row 1)… X,” adding:

“I could go on… The main point is, we decided the ticket prices, and are content that they are fair – we don’t want to price anybody out of the show. Any major artist can do the same. But we cannot control the fees that are added… Hope everyone that wants a ticket gets one.”

It is a rare example of an artist actually taking control of a situation they feel is unfair to their fans. While Swift has certainly not been reluctant to challenge the process and speak out about it, this level of hands-on involvement — especially as he was clearly learning as he went along —is nearly unprecedented. While it can’t be expected of all artists, it is certainly something to be applauded.

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