CONTINUED - Airbourne - 30 July 2011 - Shepherds Bush Empire - DOWNGRADED TICKETS

are a bunch of dishonest fuckwits

So LiveNation got back to me five days after my complaint. Not surprisingly they re-quoted the official release by Airbourne for the original reason why the Brixton show was cancelled. I quote:


"The Airbourne concert scheduled to take place at the O2 Academy Brixton on 02 December 2010 was rescheduled due to illness.  The concert will now be held at the O2 Academy Shepherds Bush on 30 July 2010. Existing tickets are not valid for the new concert date and vendors will be in touch with their customers to exchange tickets.


Whilst our best efforts will be made to accommodate customers with the corresponding ticket type they originally purchased, the new venue is much smaller and a few customers may be offered seated tickets rather than standing stalls tickets. Customers are asked to contact their vendor for clarification and refunds are available on request should customers be unable to attend or unwilling to accept their newly allocated tickets.

Should any customers need any assistance on this matter, please email info@livenation.co.uk

We apologise for any disappointment caused by this postponement."

So basically I received the bullshit "computer says no" response and if I wasn't happy with the downgrade then I should ask my ticket agent for a refund. To which my response was to ask why the show had been rescheduled to a smaller venue. Was it because LiveNation weren't able to sell enough tickets for the Brixton Academy? I received this response:

"I'm not aware of the reasons myself, but it is more likely to be due to availability of venues on the date they could do as Airbourne have sold very well historically."

So my next question was this:

"The Shepherds Bush Empire has a capacity of 2000. The Brixton Academy has a capacity of 4921. Assuming that the original show sold even 75% of the Brixton Academy capacity, how are you going to accommodate all the people that bought tickets for the original show in the smaller venue? Or, why aren't you putting on two dates at Shepherds Bush? It doesn't make sense to me. I'm sure you will appreciate that this looks like the fans are bearing the brunt of the promoter's shortcomings. Put yourself in my shoes, would you be happy with this? It would be great if you could answer these questions and put my mind (and I'm sure many others) at rest."

LiveNation responded with:

"I can only advise what I know to be the case and I cannot respond to your suggestions as we are not informed of the specifics regarding this rescheduled event. Please let me know if you would like a refund or if you will be keeping your tickets as that is all I am able to assist with."

My response:

"I was informed by Stargreen that the promoters of this event had allocated all the standing room tickets to people that purchase their tickets from Ticketmaster and that other ticket agents, such as Stargreen, had been pushed to the bottom of the list, which I'm sure you will agree is unreasonable. I then contacted Roadrunner Records to find out who the promoter was in order to arrange standing room tickets fairly (as I would assume a company organising an event such as this would adhere to a fair practice policy). They informed me that the promoter is Live Nation and also told me how to get in touch with you. So, being that Live Nation is the promoter of the event would then surely have the specifics and also the capability of issuing tickets as they see fit. So with that in mind, if you can't help me with this issue, then please put me in touch with someone who can."

LiveNation's response:

"Live Nation are not at liberty to divulge the information you have requested. You have been offered a ticket to the rescheduled event that is not inferior to your original as the face value remains the same."

So here's my problem... How do LiveNation think that a standing room ticket is not inferior to a seated ticket? Notwithstanding the fact that our group will be completely split for the night. Believe me I won't let this lie. We shouldn't have to be fobbed off with such a load of bullshit. Do they think we're stupid? It's blatantly obvious that the original gig was cancelled due to poor ticket sales. As a result we have all been relegated to a smaller venue and those who booked through LiveNation's preferred vendors will get the better tickets, not those who purchased them first and have been hugely inconvenienced by the originally cancelled gig.

To be continued...