Ticketmaster apologizes after fans turned away from Bad Bunny concert

Ticketmaster apologized over the weekend after hundreds of Bad Bunny fans were turned away from a concert in Mexico City on Friday night, an incident that sparked an inquiry from Mexican authorities.

In a Saturday statement, Ticketmaster’s division in Mexico said an “unprecedented” number of fake tickets were presented at the Puerto Rican rapper’s concert.

“This created confusion and complicated entry to the stadium, with the unfortunate consequence that some legitimate tickets were denied entry,” the company wrote.

Ticketmaster said it is refunding customers who purchased legitimate tickets and were unable to access the event last week.

The Bad Bunny concert at Estadio Azteca, which can seat more than 80,000 people, was part of the Grammy Award-winning artist’s “World’s Hottest Tour.”

Mexico’s Office of the Federal Prosecutor for the Consumer (PROFECO) requested information about the ticket admissions at the event, according to a tweet from Ricardo Sheffield, a prosecutor in the office.

Sheffield told Mexican talk show “Radio Fórmula” the tickets were not fake, alleging Ticketmaster had conducted an “elegant way of overselling” the event.

“They are not counterfeit. Ticketmaster said they were counterfeit, but they all issued them,” Sheffield said in the interview on Saturday. “They made more tickets.”

He added PROFECO could issue a fine of up to 10 percent of the company’s 2021 profits in Mexico.

Ticketmaster said it is complying with the PROFECO inquiry.

The fiasco in Mexico comes as Ticketmaster, which is owned by Live Nation Entertainment, is facing heightened scrutiny of its domination of the live music market.

Last month, a presale event for an upcoming Taylor Swift tour was flooded by bots and resellers, crashing or freezing the Ticketmaster site for many legitimate fans who had paid for the early access sale.

After Ticketmaster canceled the general public sale for the tour, Swift fans sued Live Nation Entertainment.

The company is also facing investigations from the Department of Justice and Tennessee’s attorney general.