Over the course of the past weekend, several Bad Bunny fans in Mexico City were turned away from his two shows that were being held that past weekend.
via: Variety
Hundreds of fans were denied entry to the stadium on Dec. 9 due to ticketing issues involving Ticketmaster Mexico, and as a result, Mexican authorities are posing costly consequences to the platform.
The company issued a statement following the chaos of the Friday night concert stating that an “unprecedented number” of concertgoers had bought counterfeit tickets, also adding that the general confusion at the entrance had the “unfortunate consequence that some legitimate tickets were denied entry.”
#AvisoImportante con respecto al concierto de @sanbenito (#BadBunny) en el @EstadioAzteca. pic.twitter.com/VjIoxBDR4V
— Ticketmaster México (@Ticketmaster_Me) December 10, 2022
Over the weekend, the head of Mexico’s Federal Attorney’s Office for Consumers (PROFECO), Ricardo Sheffield, tweeted and spoke to the Mexican press, confirming approximately 1,600 refunds had been requested but stressed the canceled tickets were not counterfeit, as Ticketmaster Mexico originally reported, but rather an issue of administration, triggered by an “oversell” of tickets. He further explained that Ticketmaster should respond with a 100% refund plus a 20% compensation and said the platform will additionally be fined, with “the proportion of the fine to be determined [in] the following week. It is a very serious situation, quite delicate.” The fine could total up to 10 percent of the company’s earnings in 2021, he said.
? "@Ticketmaster_Me dijo que eran boletos falsificados, pero todos lo emitieron ellos: lo que hicieron fue una sobreventa; va a ser multado, puede ser el 10% de sus ventas del año pasado": Ricardo Sheffield (@SheffieldGto), titular de la Profeco. ?? #Informa con @OSCAROLGUIN pic.twitter.com/ekJDOvoKv9
— Grupo Fórmula (@Radio_Formula) December 11, 2022
Ticketmaster did not immediately respond to Variety‘s request for comment but did post an updated statement to Twitter on Monday afternoon writing that they would comply with the 100% refund and 20% compensation fees.
Sheffield says PROFECO has received similar allegations about the company’s mismanagement of tickets in the past, so much so that they were prepping to file a class-action lawsuit against the company just last month.
The issue comes on the heels of another Ticketmaster fiasco involving the mishandling of Taylor Swift‘s Eras Tour ticket sales. More than two dozen of those fans have accused Ticketmaster’s parent company Live Nation of “unlawful conduct” in a lawsuit surrounding the ticket chaos.
Additionally, U.S. Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Mike Lee (R-UT) have announced they will be holding a hearing to examine the lack of competition in the ticketing industry, and Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Ct.) and Marsha Blackburn (R-Tn.) have written to the chair of the Federal Trade Commission inquiring about the agency’s plans to fight the use of bots in ticketing.
