Features
EBay No Place For Buffett Tickets
Fans snatched up tickets for Jimmy Buffett’s free show on the Gulf Coast as fast as Ticketmaster could distribute the ducats. However, seeing some of those tickets end up on eBay wasn’t exactly in the game plan.
Photo: AP Photo
New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival.
The July 1 show billed as “CMT Presents Jimmy Buffett & Friends Live From The Gulf Coast” takes place on the beach in Gulf Shores, Ala., and will feature performances by Margaritaville’s most famous citizen along with Kenny Chesney, Zac Brown Band, Allen Toussaint, Sonny Landreth and Jesse Winchester among the “Friends.” Presented as a free concert to aid everyone affected by the oil spill in the Gulf Of Mexico, all 35,000 tickets for the event were distributed within 10 minutes June 23.
But tickets began appearing on online auction house eBay almost immediately after the distribution began, resulting in more than 1,500 fan complaints on Buffett’s Facebook page by mid afternoon.
Meanwhile, as complaints rolled in, eBay banned further ticket auctions for the show, some of which started the bidding at $100 a piece.
But it helps to have fans in high places. Like Alabama Governor Bob Riley. According to his press secretary, Riley will look into how tickets vanished within minutes only to go up on eBay.
Country music cable channel CMT will air a portion of the concert live from 8 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. EDT. The concert will also stream on the channel’s website and air on Sirius Satellite Radio and XM Satellite Radio.
Photo: AP Photo
Oil continues to gush from the broken wellhead, at the site of the Deepwater Horizon oil well in the Gulf of Mexico.