What’s This About Ticketmaster Having to Give Out Free Tickets? Sounds Great, But…

Ticketmaster is the Great White Whale of event ticketing. Many have tried to take it down, annoyed (and occasionally outraged) over things like service charges, weird “platinum” ticket pricing and the company’s inability (unwillingness?) to take effective action against ticket-buying bots. But our complaints never seemed to be heard. Ticketmaster is monolithic, faceless, omnipresent, and all-powerful, kind of like an Old Testament God.

Well, not quite.

Back in May, Ticketmaster settled a big class action lawsuit over some of the fees it charges, a suit worth $400 million USD. It affects 50 million people who bought tickets through Ticketmaster between October 21, 1999 and February 27, 2013. At issue are those awful extra fees. Now Ticketmaster is in the process of paying out that $400 million in the form of discounts and vouchers. Watch your email with this in the subject line:  “Schlesinger v. Ticketmaster Class Action Settlement – Notice Regarding Discount and Ticket Codes.”

Fantastic, right? Hold on.

• I’ve yet to hear of anyone in Canada get such an email.
• Do you remember what your email address was in 2001? If that’s the account you used to buy a ticket for a show back then, that’s where the class action notice will go.
• Even if you do get a voucher/coupon, you can only redeem them for a specific list of events.

If you get any correspondence on this issue, lemme know, okay? Meanwhile, you can check on your status by logging on to your Ticketmaster account (you need one to get a piece of this action) and click on “Active Vouchers.” That will let you know where you stand.

(Via Gawker)