Rage Against The Machine’s Tom Morello says dynamic ticket pricing is an “awful idea”

Tom Morello has discussed the ticket prices for Rage Against The Machine‘s recent reunion tour, saying that dynamic ticket pricing is an “awful idea”.

• READ MORE: Tom Morello – “In the past, I’ve wanted to use music as a battering ram for social justice”

The band reunited last year for a number of US gigs, but ended up cancelling dozens of  shows in the wake of frontman Zack de la Rocha injuring his leg onstage last July.

In a new interview with Rolling Stone, Morello asked the journalist if he could “check a couple of boxes surrounding the U.S. tour and some misunderstandings around them”.

Firstly, he hit out at “foolish” reports of vaccine mandates at Rage shows, saying: “No fans at any show in the history of Rage Against the Machine have ever had a vaccination requirement to be in the room.”

Then, he discussed criticism of the tour’s ticket prices, and how the band employed controversial dynamic pricing.
“I think by this point, I think everybody is familiar with the awful idea of dynamic ticket pricing,” Morello said. “There was that big uproar with Springsteen and this one and that one. Just to reiterate, every ticket for the show was $125 (£100) with the exception of about five to ten percent of tickets, which we did the dynamic ticket prices with, and gave away every cent.”
He explained: “Every penny over $125 went to charities in those cities. In New York City, we raised over a million dollars for activist organisation charities.
“There was a total of about six or seven million raised on that tour in what was basically a Robin Hood tactic. I wanted to say those things out loud since there was a lot of misinformation in the world about those two things.”

Last week, tickets to The Cure’s North American tour went on sale but was soon mired in controversy after it was brought to light that Ticketmaster had added “unduly high” add-ons and fees to tickets against the band’s wishes.

Frontman Robert Smith revealed that he had spoken to the ticketing system to issue small refunds to fans who had purchased tickets. Before tickets went on sale, Smith said in a statement to fans that the band chose Ticketmaster as their ticketing partner as they hoped they would be able to provide fans with affordable tickets that weren’t “instantly and horribly distorted by resale” and the platform would be able to combat scalpers and try “to get tickets into the hands of fans at a fair price”.

Once tickets went on sale, Smith said he was “sickened” by high Ticketmaster fees after they vowed to keep prices affordable for fans. After the Verified Fan sale went live on March 15, some fans reported that Ticketmaster fees, including service fee, facility charge and order processing fee, exceeded the price of actual tickets.

Neil Young then offered his thoughts on touring and Ticketmaster, writing on his website: “It’s over. The old days are gone. I get letters blaming me for $3,000.00 tickets for a benefit I am doing. That money does not go to me or the benefit.”

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