Photo Credit: Kevin9625Ja / CC by 4.0
Mexico’s president makes a public request asking Bad Bunny to perform a free concert in Mexico City following the Ticketmaster scandal that left thousands with unusable tickets.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador of Mexico has publicly asked Bad Bunny to perform for free in Mexico City to make up for the Ticketmaster debacle that left thousands of fans outside his sold-out appearance with unusable duplicate tickets on Friday.
The president said he couldn’t offer Bad Bunny any money, but the government would pay for the lights, stage, and sound system and install a zip line at the capital’s central plaza. López Obrador suggests that Bad Bunny would do it without monetary compensation because he is “sensitive” and empathizes with his fans who were denied entry to his show because of duplicate tickets sold to them through Ticketmaster.
“I would tell him how deeply we were touched to see young people sad because they couldn’t get in because they had duplicated tickets because they were victims of fraud,” says López Obrador.
Bad Bunny has yet to announce if he will accept the president’s offer.
Meanwhile, Mexico’s consumer protection agency has announced an investigation into the fraud. Ticketmaster Mexico said that while the event was highly sought-after, they denied the concert had been oversold. The company’s statement read that it had received 4.5 million requests for only 120,000 available seats. Fake tickets then prevented legitimate ticketholders from getting in.
“On Friday, an unprecedented number of false tickets, not bought through our official channels, were presented at the gates,” the company said.
They explained that the issues at the entrances caused “temporary interruptions in the ticket reading system, which unfortunately momentarily impeded recognition of legitimate tickets.” At least 1,600 fans have been identified so far as having been sold a duplicate ticket, a Mexican government entity has reported.