Bad Bunny fans with tickets purchased through Ticketmaster were left stranded outside his sold-out concert in Mexico City Friday night (December 9) when security claimed that numerous people had fake, duplicated tickets, or canceled tickets. Vulture and CNN report that hundreds of fans were denied entry to the venue, the 80,000+ capacity Estadio Azteca, and images from the concert on social media depicted large swaths of empty seats at the sold-out show. Pitchfork has contacted representatives for Bad Bunny and Ticketmaster for comment.
In a statement posted to the verified Ticketmaster Mexico account, the company apologized to ticket-holders, claiming an “unprecedented” number of false tickets overwhelmed their systems, legitimate ticket-holders were denied entry, and that refunds would be provided to ticket-holders if their electronic records showed they were unable to enter the stadium. Estadio Azteca issued their own statement, stating that Ticketmaster’s system reported tickets that were duplicated or falsified, and to “guarantee the safety” of attendees, all of those tickets were canceled.
In its statement, Ticketmaster said it had contacted PROFECO, Mexico’s consumer protection agency, and promised to assist law enforcement in preventing ticket fraud, but offered no details of how legitimate ticket-holders could prevent being denied entry to future shows. Estadio Azteca is scheduled to host another sold-out Bad Bunny concert tonight (December 11).
Billboard also ran their own report on the incident at Estadio Azteca, quoting one fan who had traveled a long distance and paid hundreds of dollars to attend the concert, only to be turned away at the entrance.
Recent shows on Bad Bunny’s El Ultimo Tour del Mundo rank among the most lucrative concerts in history. Billboard reports he sold more than 944,000 tickets and grossed more than $232 million from 21 concerts in 15 cities—more than $10 million per show. His two sold-out shows at Los Angeles’s SoFi Stadium sit behind George Strait’s 2014 farewell show in Arlington, Texas, as the highest-grossing U.S. concerts ever.
Ticketmaster has been at the center of more than one ticketing controversy as of late; last month, the company had to cancel the public on-sale date for Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour due to “extraordinarily high demands on ticketing systems” and an insufficient number of remaining tickets. Multiple of Swift fans are now suing Ticketmaster and its parent company Live Nation over the fiasco, while the United States Department of Justice opened an antitrust investigation into Live Nation Entertainment.
Ticketmaster’s monopoly in the ticketing field will also be examined by Senators Amy Klobuchar and Mike Lee, who are leading a new subcommittee investigating the lack of competition in ticketing markets.
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