For her upcoming summer tour, Maggie Rogers has come up with a novel way for fans to circumvent the bots, scammers and exorbitant fees that have plagued the ticket-buying experience for concertgoers.
On Thursday, the Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter announced that her fans would be able to line up —physically, not virtually — and purchase tickets in-person at local box offices for a handful of her summer shows. The one-day-only on-sale event will take place on Friday, April 7.
“There’s a lot of conversation right now about combating bots and making sure tickets get directly into the hands of fans, and at a reasonable price,” Rogers wrote on social media. “Ticketing fees have never been higher and a lot of people, me included, are justifiably frustrated and concerned.
“Come by a ticket like it’s 1965,” she quipped.
Fans can queue up tomorrow and buy tickets for concerts in Charlotte, Nashville, New York City, Philadelphia, Portland, Me., Toronto, Colorado, Utah and Seattle.
Rogers herself will be manning the ticket booth at Brooklyn’s Music Hall of Williamsburg for her July show in Forest Hills, Queens.
Rogers’ gig at the Hollywood Bowl, scheduled for August 13 with Alvvays supporting, is not part of the in-person on-sale. Tickets for the Bowl show go on sale on May 2.
Ticketmaster, the Live Nation-affiliated giant, has vexed fans and artists including Taylor Swift and the Cure recently over disproportionate service fees and a system overrun by digital scalpers.
“WE DON’T WANT TO PRICE ANYBODY OUT OF THE SHOW. ANY MAJOR ARTIST CAN DO THE SAME. BUT WE CAN NOT CONTROL THE FEES THAT ARE ADDED,” the Cure’s Robert Smith wrote on Thursday in his latest all-caps broadside against Ticketmaster. “HOPE EVERYONE THAT WANTS A TICKET GETS ONE.”
The Cure will perform at the Hollywood Bowl on May 23-25.