Ticketmaster Promises to Review Purchases made for Harry Styles sold out North American Tour
One of the most anticipated tours of 2017 has already sold out and that’s not even the biggest part of the story. Not only is said tour the first solo tour of Harry Styles, it’s a tour that’s scheduled before his debut solo album has even dropped.
So far, fans have heard 3 of the 10 songs that Harry gathered from 70 songs/ideas to debut to the world and they’ve all been incredible. However, not many artists can do what Harry has already done. Tickets for his tour went on sale on the 4th of May for some countries and the 5th for Canada and the US.
Due to Harry and his kind heart, he partnered with Ticketmaster to try to make the purchase of his tickets more attainable by his actual fans. When One Direction went on tour, their tickets were purchased often and upsold on second-hand websites for much more than their ‘planned going rate’. Fans loved the band so much that they paid the outrageous rates, and there wasn’t much that the boys could do.
This time, Harry did what he could to stop this from happening. His tour is happening in small venues around the world. That combined with the number of people who love him made for a ‘hunger games’ type of ticket purchasing situation.
Ticketmaster’s #VerifiedFan system is in place to stop bots and scalpers from buying tickets in bulk just to resale them and while they said this would help, some fans aren’t happy with what really happened.
Tickets went on sale, for some, moments earlier on the mobile app than they did online. Even with the code that not every fan received, it was almost impossible to get seats. Ticketmaster put out a statement that said 95% of tickets did go to fans, but if you look on other websites, you do see a large number of them for sale – and some are going for up to 8,000 dollars.
While none of this is Harry’s fault, it is frustrating some fans and Ticketmaster heard their complaints. The website put out a statement on their Twitter page today and they promised to look over sales and see if discrepancies existed, if so, those tickets could be revoked.
While Ticketmaster looks over the purchases, many fans are asking them to also look at the resale websites and take the tickets away that are being sold there, regardless of if they were bought with the code and within the quantity limits.
Some people will do what it takes to make a buck, but it’s nice to see that Ticketmaster is trying to make this more fair on fans of Harry who truly want to see him in concert, not just enjoy the money off of the tickets they purchased just to sell.
Knowing Harry, everything that can be done will be, and his fans will hopefully have another opportunity to get tickets so that they can be part of the incredible experience that will be his first tour on his own.
While fans await the final verdict, it is incredible that so many people DID get tickets to see Harry. Not just in North America, but his entire tour sold out within moments. For any artist, that feeling has to be incredible, and it’s not one that many people can say they’ve felt.
For the time, effort, and honesty that Harry poured into this album, we can’t wait to see him tour it, and we hope many of his true fans get to experience that too.
‘…but I knew him’
