Hundreds of fans were left stranded outside of the final two Bad Bunny World’s Hottest Tour concerts at Estadio Azteca in Mexico City on Friday and Saturday after tickets they had purchased through Ticketmaster were denied at the gates. Ticketmaster, which claimed that the Bad Bunny Mexico fiasco took place due to a technical error, is now facing millions in fines from Mexican authorities.
In a statement on Saturday, Ticketmaster Mexico said that “the access problems were the result of the presentation of an unprecedented number of counterfeit tickets, which caused an unusual crowd of people and an intermittent operation of our system.” This allegedly “generated confusion and made entrance to the stadium complicated, with the unfortunate consequence that some legitimate tickets were denied entry.”
According to the head of Mexico’s Federal Attorney’s Office for Consumers (PROFECO), Ricardo Sheffield, however, the issue was simply caused by Ticketmaster overselling the concert. This “oversale” led to 1,600 tickets reported as counterfeit on Friday, December 9th and 110 on Saturday, December 10th. Organizers said close to 80,000 people attended each concert.
Sheffield on Sunday went on Televisa and argued that those affected must receive a 100% refund and 20% compensation. Ticketmaster Mexico has said that it will comply with those requested actions. Additionally, the company could be fined as much as 10% of its total sales for 2021.
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While Ticketmaster Mexico has claimed that many of the tickets were counterfeit, Sheffield said that PROFECO’s investigation found that many of the tickets were purchased through official channels. “Ticketmaster claimed [the denied tickets] were counterfeit, but they were all issued by them,” Sheffield said in an interview on Saturday with Radio Fórmula.
According to user complaints, issues of cancellations or ticket duplications from Ticketmaster Mexico and concert promoter Ocesa have increased in recent months for large-scale concerts by Daddy Yankee, Harry Styles, and Dua Lipa. Last year, Live Nation acquired 51% of operations for Ticketmaster Mexico and Ocesa, per Billboard.
This latest scandal comes a month after Ticketmaster’s pre-sale for tickets to Taylor Swift‘s The Eras Tour sent shockwaves through the ticketing industry that rippled all the way to Capitol Hill. In addition to antitrust investigations at the state and federal levels, thousands of fans have banded together to sue Ticketmaster after being shut out of the online sale.
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