Ticketmaster has said it caught scalpers selling “thousands of illegal” tickets to Harry Styles’s forthcoming New York City concerts, vowing to get them back to fans at the original price.
Earlier this year, exorbitant ticket prices for the pop star’s Together, Together tour left fans outraged. At the time, the most expensive VIP package for his 30-show Madison Square Garden residency was priced at $1,667.
In an effort to be more transparent with how “ticketing actually works,” Ticketmaster president Saumil Mehta said Wednesday in a letter on social media, “I want to walk you through what happened here, and how we’re working with Harry and his team to help real fans.
“We caught scalpers using multiple accounts and fake identities to try to get around ticket limits and resell tickets for profit,” he continued.
“We’ve canceled those tickets, none of which had been transferred to fans, and we are working with the tour to release them back to fans at the original price,” Mehta added. “You may have seen us take similar action on other tours recently. It’s all part of our broader effort to identify and catch more bad actors, enforce the rules of the sale and permanently ban accounts that violate them.”
Harry Styles is embarking on his Together, Together tour May 16 in Amsterdam (PA Wire)
He noted that scalpers often target “the tickets that are the lowest price and/or super in-demand so they can flip them for the biggest markup.”
“This impacts many tours and Harry’s residency was a huge target,” Mehta said. “When fans go to request tickets, you’ll see the original prices set by the tour.”
Below, he listed the correct ticket prices, including fees: 19 percent are $50, while 77 percent are under $95 and 100 percent are under $130.
He further clarified that none of the canceled accounts belonged to fans, and that no scalped tickets were distributed to them.
Additionally, fans who purchased tickets directly through Ticketmaster are unaffected, as are those with transferred or resale tickets in their accounts, as well as attendees at shows outside of New York City.
“We stop most scalpers before they ever buy tickets, and we catch more before those tickets can be resold,” Mehta concluded. “But fraud evolves, and so do we. I come from a fintech background, and tackling problems like this is part of why I joined the ticketing industry and we’ll keep getting better at it.”
Fans interested in attending Styles’s upcoming concerts are now required to submit a ticket request through Ticketmaster.
Ticketmaster said it was focused on improving fans’ ticket purchasing experience (Getty)
Requests can be submitted from April 30 at 12 p.m. EDT until May 1 at 5 p.m. EDT. “Anyone can request tickets but fans who don’t yet have tickets to the NYC shows will be prioritized,” Ticketmaster said on X.
Customers can request a limit of four tickets for two different shows, for a total of eight tickets. With each request, fans will be asked to enter payment details and will be charged if selected.
Once a request is submitted, an email summarizing the details will be sent.
Those whose requests can be fulfilled will receive a confirmation email by May 8 at 11:50 p.m. EDT.
The announcement comes days after a federal jury ruled that Ticketmaster and its parent company Live Nation were operating a harmful monopoly over major concert venues.
Live Nation has said it plans to appeal “any unfavorable rulings.”
