Cohen’s TicketsNow Surprise

Following a pair of recent class-action filings against Ticketmaster in Canada, further complaints have surfaced regarding TM’s handling of Leonard Cohen’s upcoming trek through the country.

Ticketmaster’s subsidiary secondary ticketing site TicketsNow began selling tickets to the Canadian musician’s upcoming shows at large markups before the official onsale at Ticketmaster.

Cohen tickets with a face value between $99 and $250 were being sold at upward of $800 on TicketsNow. Copps Coliseum CEO Duncan Gillespie contacted TM officials and the tickets were pulled off TicketsNow soon after.

“Brokers were speculating, which is their business model,” Gillespie told Pollstar. “And that’s not going away.”

However, Ticketmaster does not allow such speculation on TicketsNow and took down the offers once the Hamilton, Ontario, venue head alerted the company.

“Look, I’m not trying to sound like an apologist for Ticketmaster, but they were as upset about this as we were,” Gillespie said. “Brokers will continue to speculate on other sites, which is what they do. … Ticketmaster reacted to this; we just want them to be more proactive.”