WASHINGTON, Feb 3 (Reuters) – Ticketmaster is getting ready to promote tickets for Beyonce’s first tour in six years another way, hoping to keep away from a repeat of final yr’s Taylor Swift debacle.
Ticketmaster, whose charges and gross sales processes have aggravated bands and followers for many years, got here underneath fireplace in November when pissed off Swifties battled its web site, typically unsuccessfully, to purchase tickets for Swift’s first tour in 5 years.
The corporate, owned by Stay Nation (LYV.N), is working to confirm followers, filter out bots and others that might purchase tickets for resale, and mood followers’ expectations that they’ll get tickets for Beyonce’s Renaissance tour.
Beyonce, who final toured in 2016, launched the chart-topping and critically acclaimed “Renaissance,” her seventh studio album, on the finish of July. The album, impressed by Black and queer dance music tradition and pioneers, is within the working to be named album of the yr at this yr’s Grammy Awards on Sunday.
“Demand for this tour is anticipated to be excessive. If there may be extra demand than there are tickets obtainable, a lottery-style choice course of will decide which Verified Followers get a novel entry code and that are positioned on the wait record,” Ticketmaster mentioned on its web site. The entry code, the corporate mentioned, “doesn’t assure tickets.”
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Ticketmaster tweeted on Thursday that the demand to register for an opportunity to purchase tickets for concert events within the 9 cities in Group A, whose registration closed on Friday, exceeded the variety of tickets by greater than 800%. Second reveals have been added in seven cities, together with Houston, Atlanta and Toronto.
The North American leg of the tour opens in Toronto on July 8 and closes in New Orleans on Sept. 27, in response to the Ticketmaster web site. The primary tickets go on sale on Feb. 6.
After loud complaints from Taylor Swift followers, the corporate blamed greater than 3.5 billion requests from followers, bots and scalpers for its overwhelmed web site. Final month, Joe Berchtold, president and chief monetary officer of Stay Nation, informed a U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee listening to that he apologized to followers.
On Thursday, the committee retweeted a information report in regards to the Beyonce tour announcement and tweeted to @Ticketmaster, “We’re watching.”
Reporting by Diane Bartz; Further reporting by Lisa Richwine; Enhancing by Leslie Adler
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