Walt Disney Concert Hall in Downtown Los Angeles, home base for the LA Philharmonic (Photo: Abhard Photo)
Ticketing scams and glitches remain a serious concern for concertgoers, particularly given the difficulties involved recovering lost funds. The latest meltdown happened in Los Angeles over the weekend, where potentially dozens of LA Philharmonic concertgoers were turned away after StubHub sold tickets multiple times to different buyers.
It was a rough weekend for classical aficionados in Los Angeles, thanks to an unfortunate meltdown involving StubHub secondary tickets. The issue, which may have been the result of a coordinated scam, resulted in the same tickets being sold to multiple different buyers.
The result: a crowd of LA Philharmonic buyers were being turned away despite holding StubHub-purchased tickets — while being told that people had already claimed their seats. According to those running the box office and ticketing checkout at Disney Concert Hall in Downtown Los Angeles, the issue was a recurring theme all night, with potentially dozens of concertgoers turned away.
The LA Phil’s Friday evening concert looked like a sellout, though Philharmonic box office was able to directly sell a limited number of full-priced tickets to scrambling fans.
That included myself: after StubHub informed me that my ticket had already been claimed and people were sitting in my seats, I scrambled to purchased a last-minute ticket. Others weren’t so lucky and were forced to walk.
The LA Phil’s performance — which included a Mozart Piano Concerto and full orchestral rendition of early-20th century composer Nielsen — continued throughout the weekend. It’s unclear if the problem was resolved for the other shows.
StubHub offered to refund my original purchase ‘within 5-8 business days,’ and subsequently emailed that the issue was ‘under review’. A StubHub representative also offered to look into the situation, though others experiencing StubHub issues have reported struggles getting refunds on problematic tickets.
(The ‘under review’ status for refunds seems to be a common point of frustration, with delays lasting weeks or even months — if the money is returned at all).
The problem is the latest ticketing snag impacting unlucky concertgoers.
Just recently, Irish and Scottish authorities warned of large-scale scams involving Oasis tickets sold by Ticketmaster. Those scams also involved tickets that didn’t exist, with fans were bilked of “large sums of money” after purchasing advance tickets or last-minute tickets that do not exist.
Similar problems have plagued Oasis tickets in North America, which prompted an ugly war-of-words between Ticketmaster and StubHub over the source of fake or ‘phantom’ tickets. After getting jabbed for offering fake tickets, StubHub quickly accused both Live Nation, Ticketmaster and the National Independent Venue Association (NIVA) of ‘partnering to spread false information about ticket availability in an attempt to further their own policy agenda and create distrust in the secondary market.”
In a quick retort, Live Nation fired back that “StubHub is lying,” while blaming the secondary ticketing platform for offering fake tickets immediately after tickets went on sale.
“Oasis tickets were offered for sale on StubHub immediately after the North American dates and venues were announced, before any onsale, and before anyone had rights to particular seats – as the listings explicitly claimed,” the ticketing giant blasted.
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