In the wake of the cancellation of the Aug. 6 Beastie Boys show at the Congress Theater due to MCA’s cancer diagnosis, Austin, Texas-based Front Gate Tickets sent a notice today to ticket buyers:
A base ticket refund is available to all ticket purchasers. If you ordered your ticket with a credit card, then you will automatically receive a refund. Please allow 1-5 business days for processing and for the refund to post to your account. If you paid for your ticket with cash, then you must return the ticket to FRONT GATE TICKETS by mail.
I got the note because I’d purchased four tickets to the show. The “base ticket” line smelled a bit fishy to me, so I called Front Gate’s customer service line and found out the company intends to hang onto every cent of its service charges for the 86′d show–a whopping $36.40 for those of us who ordered four. That’s in addition to a $4 mailing fee. I don’t argue the latter charge–Front Gate did send the tickets in a timely fashion. But I did dispute the service fee with my credit card company. Shows do get canceled, and ticket sellers should have insurance in place to cover costs in that eventuality instead of attempting to make a juicy profit off of Adam Yauch’s health crisis.
Frank,
Were you able to get the service charges refunded to your card? I agree with you and think this is totally bogus…
Cubs ticketing service pulled same bullsh*t for playoff games that didn’t happen. Tickets were sent via email which is even more brutal. Haven’t been back to wrigley since.
I’ve worked with a few different ticket agencies and canceled shows, looks like they’re not actually banking on your service charges, the promoter is the one who decides whether or not the service charge should or shouldn’t be refunded to customers so if anything you should be mad at the beasties promoter
This sucks, I’m surprised it doesn’t have Live Nation written all over it.
From what I can tell online, the promoter, C3 uses Front Gate exclusively. I can’t hunt down if they own Front Gate or not. The promoter is local and specific to the show, so no one should be bashing the “Beasties promoter”. I’m sure the band is dealing with this as well as they can considering the situation.
C3/Front Gate collectively should have had insurance on the show, so in the event that it was canceled, it’s not the ticket buyer covering these costs. There are overages to canceling which in this situation C3/Front Gate are leaving to the ticket buyers to cover. Unfortunately, it probably was in the disclaimer you agreed to when you accepted their terms and conditions at the time of purchase.
Don’t get me wrong, this blows and if it were me in your situation, I’d be writing emails to C3 and Front Gate and copying as many people that carried some weight as possible. I try at all costs to get tickets from band fan sites and band sponsored lotteries to avoid any sort of fee.
Interested to see if anyone from C3 or Front Gate makes a statement - also, who’s going to fill this after-Lolla show now that the spot is open?
The promoter would be C3 Presents who handle booking both Lollapalooza and The Congress. Coincidentally, they’re located in Austin, just like Front Gate.
I find it absurd that Front Gate Tickets (which I believe is owned by C3) thinks it is ok to keep 100% of the service charges ON TOP OF the shipping charges. I totally get them keeping the shipping charges, but for them to make a profit on this show is completely unfair. They are keeping $9.10 per ticket (again, on top of the shipping charges). That means if they sold 4,000 tickets for this show, they stand to make $36,400 on a show that didn’t happen. Say what you want about Ticketmaster, but when they have a show that cancels they do not keep 100% of the service charges. They keep the shipping charges and the per order processing fee and refund the rest. C3 and Front Gate need to step up and do the right thing here.
Got my email into FG requesting a FULL refund. I don’t see how this can stand,. They are making TM look like angels here. Next step is a chargeback.
I sent them one too…..it is absurd - they can keep the $4 shipping fee, but FG / C3 should do the right thing and refund the service fee.
If not - at least they should send my $36 to cover part of Yauch’s medical bills.
V.