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Ticketmaster's TicketWeb among portals selling

access to cancelled concert dates..

Live concerts are cancelled in most parts of the country for the foreseeable future.

, yet Ticketmaster and other Canadian ticket portals have continued to sell access

to upcoming events that aren’t happening.

Several dozen concerts, including a DJ set with Andrew Rayel originally slated for

Friday at Toronto’s Toybox Nightclub, were still available on Ticketweb, a portal

owned by Ticketmaster, until after the company was contacted by The Canadian

Press on Wednesday.

And concerts once booked throughout May at the PNE Forum in Vancouver were

listed by non-profit retailer Ticketleader until the company responded to inquiries

on why they were still up for sale.

Those PNE shows, which included a Kaytranada concert previously scheduled for

May 9, have now been marked “postponed” by Ticketleader until an undetermined

new date.

The lack of action by ticketsellers illustrates a divide between provincial bans of large

public gatherings and how the concert industry is handing the fallout of COVID-19.

Several other events organized by Live Nation continued to be available for purchase on

Ticketweb as of Wednesday afternoon, including a May 2 concert with New York-based

singer Margaret Glaspy at a Vancouver venue, and a May 10 date in Toronto with French

electronic act Hyphen Hyphen.

A Toronto stop on a cancelled tour for Australian singer-songwriter Matt Corby was still

listed on Ticketmaster’s reseller site Stubhub as well. None of the listings provided

information about postponement.

Other dates, including a Vancouver performance by Ivan & Alyosha on May 9 that was

postponed by the artists weeks ago, disappeared from Ticketweb on Wednesday.

A representative for Ticketmaster did not respond to requests for comment about shows

listed on Ticketweb, and its reseller platform Stubhub.

Ticketmaster has already faced backlash for how its handled customers affected by

COVID-19 cancellations.

The company was widely criticized for its decision to alter its refund policy in the early days

of the pandemic, allowing it to decline refunds. After pressure from political leaders, and a

reported class action lawsuit filed in the U.S. by a Rage Against the Machine fan, Ticketmaster

revised its stance by outlining plans to launch a refund program May 1 “on a rolling basis, for

all events impacted by COVID-19.”

The program, which it’s calling “Rock When You’re Ready,” will offer “concert cash credits” of

up to 150 per cent of the face value for future ticket purchases, or ticketholders can choose

to donate their tickets to a health-care worker through a Live Nation initiative. Refunds will be

issued within 30 days after a concert’s cancellation, or a new date has been announced,

Ticketmaster said in a statement.

The problems surrounding COVID-19 are the latest in a lengthy list of consumer complaints

against the ticket giant, which faced widespread scrutiny in Canada four years ago when tickets

to Tragically Hip were snapped up by ticket bots and reappeared on reseller sites with a massive

markup.

Pascal Courty, a professor of economics at University of Victoria, has studied the live events and

tickets resale industry, and calls the latest moves “profiteering” in a pandemic.

“There are general laws to say that you cannot do deceptive practices where you know that you’re

offering consumers a contract that you cannot deliver,” he said.

“Ticketmaster is creating a huge mess because once the event is cancelled, knowing how much

you’re going to give back to these people, it’s going to be difficult.”

However, all of the concerts won’t be cancelled outright, and ticketsellers who are buying tickets now

will likely be able to use them whenever their show does materialize.

Shelley Frost, president of Ticketleader, which is owned by Pacific National Exhibition, said the company

is working with concert promoters to reschedule dates, including the Kaytranada show. She said that’s

why Ticketleader continued to make the events available to purchase, even though there was no

certainty when – or if – they would go forward.

The British Columbia government has prohibited gatherings of more than 50 people in one place until

at least the end of May.

“Promoters have requested that people are still allowed to buy tickets for the show, regardless of what

the date is,” Frost said shortly before Ticketleader updated its website to note the May 9 postponement.

“What we’ve said in the meantime… is that we’re going to take the ability to continue purchasing tickets

down, at least through May 30.”

Frost said Ticketleader would honour refunds if ticketholders made the request.

“There is absolutely no intent to try and hold money unnecessarily.”

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