Ticketmaster has incurred the wrath of yet another fan base following a fiasco at Bad Bunny’s show in Mexico City. At the December 9 show at the Estadio Azteca, thousands of hopeful attendees were denied entry in what has been described as an “unprecedented” sale of fraudulent tickets.
“The inconveniences at the entrances were a consequence of the high unprecedented number of fake tickets which caused crowding of people more than typical,” a statement issued by Ticketmaster following the incident reads, per Billboard.
“The crowding caused confusion and complicated the entrance to the stadium, which led to people with legitimate tickets, not being allowed entry.”
The use of paper tickets is still the standard in Mexico, which makes them easier to duplicate. However, the chaos incited at the Bad Bunny show resulted in many viable tickets being canceled by Ticketmaster and deemed invalid at the gate. Panicked fans began to attempt to scale fences and gain entry to the show outside the proper channels. Many of the testimonies from fans detail them waiting hours for entry only to be denied when they got to the front gate.
“They started bouncing people—the girl in front of me, then me and then like seven people after,” says concert attendee Aitana Hernández, per The Washington Post. “They told me my ticket had either been canceled or was a fake.”
“I’m so sick of this,” Hernández continues. “As a fan you prefer buying tickets from [Ticketmaster] instead of resale because that’s how you know your tickets aren’t false. Then, who are we supposed to trust?”
In the wake of the incident, Ricardo Sheffield—head of Mexico’s consumer protection agency—shared in an interview that he has requested a report from Ticketmaster detailing the ticket sales for Bad Bunny’s show. Through the Office of the Federal Prosecutor for the Consumer (PROFECO), Sheffield says Ticketmaster will be required to reimburse those with valid tickets who were denied entry, as well as pay them an additional 20 percent of the ticket value for compensation. PROFECO also plans on slamming Ticketmaster with a standalone fine.
In an interview with Radio Fórmula, Sheffield accuses Ticketmaster of overselling tickets to the Bad Bunny showing, alleging the tickets “weren’t falsified. Ticketmaster said they were falsified; but they issued all of them.”
The show did indeed go on for Bad Bunny, as the Puerto Rican rapper concluded his world tour. The commotion outside the venue did delay the show by an hour, but Bad Bunny eventually took the stage alongside collaborators Bomba Estéreo, Chencho Corleone, Jowell & Randy, and Jhayco.
