Drake performs last December in Atlanta. A proposed class action lawsuit filed in Montreal is alleging that Ticketmaster misled customers buying tickets for a Drake show in that city.
Drake performs last December in Atlanta. A proposed class action lawsuit filed in Montreal is alleging that Ticketmaster misled customers buying tickets for a Drake show in that city.
By Manuela Vega Staff Reporter, Alessia Passafiume Staff Reporter
A Montreal law firm has filed a class-action lawsuit against Ticketmaster, arguing the ticket giant “intentionally misleads consumers for their own financial gain.”
LPC Avocat Inc. said a Montreal man purchased two “Official Platinum” seats for Drake’s upcoming “It’s All A Blur” tour at the Bell Centre on July 14 for $789.54 each. The next day, the law firm says, Drake added a second show for July 15 and the same seats were available for more than $350 less.
“Ticketmaster unilaterally decides which tickets it advertises and sells as ‘Official Platinum’ based on a given event,” reads the application for the class action provided to the Star. “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.”
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The suit further alleges Ticketmaster knew Drake would perform two concerts in Montreal, but “concealed this information” in order to “squeeze out” as much money as possible from fans buying tickets for the first show.
If the Quebec Superior Court approves it, the class-action lawsuit will seek “compensatory damages in the aggregate amount of the difference between the prices charged for ‘Official Platinum’ tickets and what their regular price ought to have been” for fans who bought Official Platinum seats. It also seeks $300 per customer in punitive damages.
These allegations have not been proven in court and Ticketmaster has not publicly commented on them.
According to its website, LPC Avocat Inc. is “a class action law firm focusing on protecting consumer rights.”
Backlash for Ticketmaster prices
While fans have long groaned about high Ticketmaster prices, one world-famous musician recently took his grievances to Twitter.
The Cure frontman Robert Smith convinced the company this month to issue partial refunds to some of his fans after it had inflated prices of tickets that had originally been set as low as $20.
Some are suggesting the U.S. government split the company up, more than a decade after Ticketmaster and concert promoter Live Nation merged, with one senator calling the company a “monopolistic mess.”
According to the company during the judiciary hearings, bots attempting to buy and resell Swift’s tickets and a rush of fans led to a malfunction that crashed the site during presale.
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Live Nation’s president and chief financial officer, Joe Berchtold, apologized for the incident and promised to improve service, saying the company has already spent $1 billion over the last decade on security enhancements.
Alessia Passafiume is a GTA-area based staff reporter for the Star’s Express Desk. Reach her via email: apassafiume@thestar.ca
Manuela
Vega is a Toronto-based staff reporter for the Star’s Express
Desk. Follow her on X: @_manuelavega.
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