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Manchester bombing tribute concert tickets go on sale Manchester tribute gig: fans who witnessed attack struggling to get free tickets
(about 2 hours later)
Tickets for a concert headlined by Ariana Grande to raise money for the victims of last week’s suicide bombing in Manchester have gone on sale. Fans who have been told they cannot go to Ariana Grande’s benefit concert for free because they could not prove they attended on the night of the Manchester bombing are being given another chance to go.
The One Love Manchester concert, to be held on Sunday evening at the Old Trafford cricket ground, will feature performances by Justin Bieber, Coldplay, Katy Perry, Miley Cyrus, Pharrell Williams, Usher, Take That and One Direction’s Niall Horan. Fans have complained that they were not eligible to register for free tickets for Grande’s One Love Manchester event this weekend because they bought tickets to the original gig from listings on resale sites, such as Ticketmaster’s GetMeIn, which has meant they have no original purchase information to prove they were there.
The £40 tickets went on sale at 10am on Thursday on the Ticketmaster and LiveNation websites, with buyers being given the option of donating more money to the We Love Manchester emergency fund. Resale sites such as Viagogo, Seatwave and StubHub have been criticised for being used by touts and event companies to ramp up the price of tickets to fans who miss out on official sites.
The performers have all waived their fees and organisers hope the show will raise at least £2m for the fund, which was set up by Manchester city council and the British Red Cross after the attack on 22 May. The attack killed 22 people and injured 116. Ticketmaster and LiveNation, its parent company, did not allow fans who were at the concert the night of the bombing to register for free tickets to this Sunday’s charity concert at 10pm last night. They have acknowledged they are having issues verifying who attended. They have re-opened the online service for fans until 2pm on Thursday.
People who attended Grande’s original concert were asked to register by 10pm on Wednesday night if they wanted free tickets for Sunday’s performance. But some have complained that they are not eligible because they bought their tickets for Grande’s arena concert on resale websites. “We want to give all fans who were at the show, regardless of where they bought their tickets, every opportunity to register for One Love Manchester,” said a spokeswoman for Ticketmaster. “We worked through the night and verified thousands of original bookings although there were some we could not verify.”
Laura Smith, from Hull, told the Mirror she had not been able to register for free tickets because she bought tickets to the Grande concert for her daughters and partner on the resale site GetMeIn, paying almost £500 for them, nearly twice the face value. However, disgruntled fans could still find it hard to get their free tickets to the event, to be held at Old Trafford cricket ground, as Ticketmaster still wants information that many who have used resale sites are struggling to obtain.
“I’ve been trying to find the original purchaser on Facebook, but I’ve had messages from other people who were there last Monday who don’t want to go to the benefit concert,” she said. Ticketmaster has said fans have to provide their booking reference number and information about where they bought the ticket.
“They’ve said they’re going to claim for the free tickets anyway then I can buy them off them – I thought that’s unfair, people are going to be making a hell of a lot of money out of this, when that’s not what it was about. The poor children who have had to witness it all – it’s just such a shame.” One fan told the Guardian she bought tickets for herself and her two daughters from Viagogo as a Christmas gift because the main ticketsellers had sold out, but now she cannot get free tickets because the details required by Ticketmaster are held by the original purchaser.
Tickets for the show will not be available on most major ticket resale websites, in an attempt to stop touts profiting from the event. Ticketmaster said the tickets would be banned from both of its resale platforms, GetMeIn and Seatwave. Stubhub and Viagogo also announced they would not be accepting them. “My tickets were originally bought by a travel company specialising in music event travels,” she said. “I then paid £100 for a £45 ticket on Viagogo. These companies [who originally purchased the tickets] can claim these [free] tickets they are not entitled to, and resell them all over again. We’ve escaped with our lives the horror of the terror attack and now I find I will not be able to take them.”
About 50,000 people are expected to attend the event, which will be broadcast on BBC television. ITV has rescheduled the final of Britain’s Got Talent, moving it from Sunday to Saturday night, so as not to “distract from an important cause”, a spokesperson said. The British Soap Awards, which were initially scheduled for Saturday evening on ITV, will instead be broadcast on Tuesday night. Only about 5,000 fans who attended the original concert have received tickets for the charity gig, of about 20,000 who attended. It is not clear how many of the 15,000 fans have decided not to go and how many want to go but have been unable to pass Ticketmaster’s verification system.
Greater Manchester’s chief constable, Ian Hopkins, said police had consulted the families of the victims about Grande returning to Manchester, and that while the majority were in favour, some “clearly aren’t”. “That is absolutely understandable,” he said. “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,” said a spokeswoman. “We thank fans for their patience as we continue to process the registrations.”
Pupils at Parrs Wood high school, who last week recorded a charity cover of Ariana Grande’s song My Everything, will perform the song with the singer. Some members of the choir were at Grande’s concert on 22 May. Major ticket resale sites such as Ticketmaster’s GetMeIn, Seatwave, eBay-owned StubHub and Viagogo have all said they would not allow resales of tickets bought for the charity gig, in an attempt to stop touts profiting from the event.
Viagogo had almost 11,000 people watching online for tickets being made available for Ariana Grande concerts on Thursday morning, but the site only had tickets on sale for upcoming overseas gigs.
The official £40 tickets went on sale at 10am on Thursday on the Ticketmaster and LiveNation websites, with buyers being given the option of donating more money to the We Love Manchester emergency fund.
“Ticketmaster was unsurprisingly met with remarkable demand for One Love Manchester tickets we had on sale this morning; 140,000 fans were on the website and our call centre was buzzing,” said the spokeswoman. “With over 450,000 searches on our site for One Love Manchester over the last 24 hours, demand was always going to be extremely high. We are happy to report that there are thousands of fans who successfully purchased tickets during the general sale.”
About 50,000 people are expected to attend the event, which will be broadcast on BBC television. ITV has rescheduled the final of Britain’s Got Talent, moving it from Sunday to Saturday night, so as not to “distract from an important cause”, a spokesperson said. The British Soap Awards, which were scheduled for Saturday evening on ITV, will be broadcast on Tuesday night.
The performers have all waived their fees and organisers hope the show will raise at least £2m for the emergency fund, which was set up by Manchester city council and the British Red Cross after the attack on 22 May. The attack killed 22 people and injured 116.
It is not the first time reseller sites have been criticised for seeking to profit from events organised to raise money for charity.
Switzerland-based Viagogo was accused of “moral repugnance” after reselling tickets for an Ed Sheeran gig in aid of the Teenager Cancer Trust and was branded “callous” for cashing in on a charity event featuring comedian Peter Kay.
The company also drew fire from MPs after refusing to turn up for a select committee inquiry into the ticketing market, in an almost unprecedented snub to a parliamentary evidence session.
The company was accused of “naked mis-selling and fraud” in its absence, amid complaints from fans who have said they are being overcharged, or refused entry to events having bought tickets through the website.