News – 2 days ago

Photo Credit: Prince Williams/Wireimage

Ticketmaster is facing more alleged price gouging issues. This time, a Montreal man claims that Beverly Hills ticket sales and distribution company “intentionally misleads consumers for their own financial gain” after purchasing tickets to Drake and 21 Savage’s ‘It’s All A Blur’ tour.

According to the Toronto Star, a lawsuit was filed on the man’s behalf by law firm LPC Advocat Inc. after he purchased a pair of  “Official Platinum” seats for Drake’s July 14 show at the Bell Centre. Although the man paid $789.54 for each ticket, the Canadian rapper announced a second show at the Bell Centre, where the price of the same “Official Platinum” seats dropped to $350. The lawsuit claims that Ticketmaster knew that the Her Loss would have a second show at the Bell Centre but “concealed this information” to “squeeze out” money from fans.

“Ticketmaster unilaterally decides which tickets it advertises and sells as ‘Official Platinum’ based on a given event,” the suit reads. “The result is that most, if not all, of the tickets advertised and sold as ‘Official Platinum’ are neither ‘premium tickets’ nor ‘some of the best seats in the house’ and are, in fact, just regular tickets sold by Ticketmaster at an artificially inflated premium in bad faith.”

LPC Advocat plans to turn the lawsuit into a class action complaint, which will need to be approved by the Quebec Superior Court. If it proceeds, the suit will seek 300 punitive damages for each member who joins, along with compensatory damages to cover “the difference between prices charged for ‘Official Platinum’ tickets and what their regular prices out to have been.”

Ticketmaster has faced controversy in the last year over their prices and ticket rollouts, notably Taylor Swift’s ‘The Eras Tour,’ which led to two separate class action lawsuits. The Senate Judiciary Committee also prompted their own investigations and hearings, which ended in January.