Robert Smith of The Cure revealed that 7000 tickets found on resale sites have been cancelled in a bid to battle touts.

Ticketmaster has come under plenty of fire in recent years. The company has been accused of monopolising the industry, and its dynamic pricing system has upset fans and some artists. One of those artists is Robert Smith, the lead singer of The Cure. In his latest attempt to get justice for real fans, he and the band have cancelled 7000 resale tickets.

How The Cure is fighting ticket touts

As explained recently by Avenged Sevenfold frontman, M Shadows, artists can choose whether to opt into dynamic pricing for shows. In this case, Robert Smith chose to opt out of any dynamic pricing system or Ticketmaster “platinum” ticket options. Alongside this, Smith restricted ticket transfers in markets, where legally allowed.

Smith announced last week that thousands of tickets had been cancelled due to these steps.

The singer revealed that “Approx 7k tickets across approx 2200 orders have been cancelled. These are tickets acquired with fake accounts / listed on secondary resale sites.”

Smith also warned ticket buyers from attempting to get around ticket transfer rules. In a tweet, he said: “OFFERING TO SELL/SEND ACCOUNT LOGIN DETAILS TO GET AROUND TM TRANSFER LIMITATIONS… ANY/ALL TICKETS OBTAINED IN THIS WAY WILL BE CANCELED, AND ORIGINAL FEES PAID ON THOSE TICKETS WILL NOT BE REFUNDED.”

He went on to explain that any fees paid on these tickets will be donated to Amnesty International. As for the tickets themselves, these would then be resold to fans.

Robert Smith vs Ticketmaster service fees

This is not the first time that Robert Smith has taken action against Ticketmaster. After putting tickets for their North American tour on sale in recent weeks, Smith called the service fees “unduly high”. Fans had complained that these additional fees, combined with other charges, added up to more than the face value ticket price.

After discussions with the ticket distributor, Smith announced that: “Ticketmaster have agreed with us that many of the fees being charged are unduly high, and as a gesture of goodwill have offered a $10 per ticket refund to all verified fan accounts for Lowest Ticket Price (‘LTP’) transactions.”

The Cure cancelling dodgy resale tickets is a testament to the respect they hold for their fans. It’s certainly reassuring to see musicians protecting the interests of their fans in this way. Other artists, including Tom Grennan, have also shown opposition towards Ticketmaster. It seems clear that both fans and artists largely agree that dynamic pricing isn’t the solution for avoiding touts. Hopefully, we can see other – more wallet-friendly – solutions being tested in future.

The Cure’s North American tour includes 30 dates and is set to kick off in early May.