Features
Update: One Love Manchester
Black Eyed Peas, Little Mix, and Robbie Williams will join Justin Bieber, Coldplay, Katy Perry, Miley Cyrus, Pharrell Williams, Take That and Niall Horan on the June 4 One Love Manchester bill, which will be headlined by Ariana Grande at
Kevork Djansezian / Pool Photo via AP – Ariana Grande
“MTV Movie Awards Show,” Warner Bros. Studios, Burbank, Calif.
The benefit concert is promoted by
Ticketmaster offered free tickets to concertgoers who attended the May 22 concert in Manchester Arena that was attacked by a suicide bomber killing 22.
To claim their tickets, fans had to register on a Ticketmaster site and provide enough details to verify that they had indeed been to the May 22 concert: booking reference, information about where they bought their ticket, including the venue box office, or primary and secondary ticketing websites.
Ticketmaster staff “worked through the night and verified thousands of original bookings,” according to a company statement. “There were some we could not verify,” the statement continues.
A source told the UK’s Telegraph that Ticketmaster “had been battling touts and members of the public chancing their luck applying for free seats, as well as genuine fans who had entered their details incorrectly.”
So Ticketmaster extended the period during which attendants of the May 22 gig could register for a free ticket to June 4’s event.
“We would like to reassure any fans that were at the show, that they will receive a free ticket for One Love Manchester, provided we can verify their initial booking. We thank fans for their patience as we continue to process the registrations.”
Tickets also went on regular sale, selling out quickly, with some individuals trying to resell them on eBay or their social networks.
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Official ticket resellers like Seatwave, Getmein, Stubhub and Viagogo, however, pledged they would not allow the resale of One Love Manchester tickets, according to UK Music.
Ticketmaster is trying to cancel all tickets being resold. The company said it “was unsurprisingly met with remarkable demand for One Love Manchester tickets we had on sale this morning [June 1] – 140,000 fans were on the website and our call centre was buzzing.
“We have set aside tickets for the 14,200 people who were at the Ariana Grande concert to attend One Love Manchester for free. More than 25,000 people applied for them. Sadly, over 10,000 unscrupulous applications have been made.
“At Ticketmaster we are doing everything we can – including extending today’s deadline – to ensure that tickets go to the actual fans and not the opportunists or touts who have also been applying for free tickets.”