Shakedown Street: Why can’t I resell these Grateful Dead concert tickets?

When Ticketmaster sells Nathaniel Meyer his Grateful Dead tickets, it leads him to believe he can resell them. But he can’t. Is he stuck with them?

Question: Ticketmaster sold me tickets to Dead & Company: Dead Forever – Live at Sphere that did not indicate transfer or resale restrictions prior to sale while advertising another category of tickets for the same event that clearly stated that those tickets were nontransferable.

The comparison of the two ticket categories side by side implied that the tickets I purchased could be transferred or resold. After my purchase, I found out that I can’t resell them.

I have tried for two months just to gain knowledge of whether this restriction would eventually be lifted and have been given no resolution or answers. In the process, Ticketmaster inadvertently called the wrong party to discuss my situation, which was a breach of my personal information.

I’d like a full refund of the $3,350 I paid for my tickets. – Nathaniel Meyer, Sheboygan, Wisconsin

Answer: Ticketmaster never explicitly said you could resell your Grateful Dead concert tickets but, as you point out, it certainly implied it.

But before I get to the answer, a word or two about the Grateful Dead. I spent almost 20 years doing extended road trips around the United States before moving abroad and I have concluded that the Grateful Dead is the ultimate driving soundtrack. I always turn my Sirius XM to Channel 23 and leave it there for the duration of the drive. (Thank you, David Lemieux.) As is a tradition in this column, I will be featuring lots of Grateful Dead song titles in the story. Are you ready?

It looks like the event’s organizer, Sphere, controlled the transferability of the tickets. Sometimes organizers initially do not allow ticket transfers but after they sell all their tickets and are sitting on top of the world they change the terms as the concert date gets closer. (Am I making this too easy, fellow Deadheads?)

In this case, Sphere had indicated the tickets were not transferable but it told Ticketmaster that it might loosen its rules. So there was some uncertainty but it sure felt like Ticketmaster was stealin’ your tickets – and it left you singing the blues.

What made this a difficult case was that your tickets didn’t say they were transferable. You made that assumption based on other tickets for the same event that were explicitly nontransferable. That was a fair, but ultimately flawed, assumption.

It looks like the event’s organizer did not indicate the transferability when it sent the ticket information to Ticketmaster. That could have been an innocent mistake but it led you to buy tickets that you thought were transferable. You must have felt like a passenger on a ship of fools.

If you’re ever in a situation like this again, it’s best to confirm the terms of a concert ticket before buying it. And when you’re talking about a $3,350 expenditure (worth every penny, if you ask me) you want to get that in writing. Otherwise, you could end up the loser.

In your correspondence with Ticketmaster, a representative also recommended event ticket protector insurance. A claim would have been hard to handle because most insurance covers issues such as an illness, a mechanical breakdown on the way to a concert or death. But it probably wouldn’t have applied to a transferability problem.

Did you need a miracle to get this case resolved? Maybe. You could have appealed this to a manager. I list the names, numbers and email addresses of the Ticketmaster executives on my consumer advocacy site, Elliott.org. You might have also disputed the charges on your credit card although it might have been difficult to win since you didn’t have a written promise of transferability.

But don’t worry – help is on the way. I contacted Ticketmaster on your behalf. A representative called you and offered a full refund for your Dead & Co. tickets, which you accepted.

Nathaniel, I hope you keep on truckin’ and I’ll see you at the next show.

Christopher Elliott is the founder of Elliott Advocacy (https://elliottadvocacy.org), a nonprofit organization that helps consumers solve their problems. Email him at chris@elliott.org or get help by contacting him at https://elliottadvocacy.org/help/.

© 2024 Christopher Elliott