Ticketmaster: How has its refund policy changed?

It’s bad enough when a concert or festival you’d planned your summer around gets cancelled or moved, but losing out on the ticket price is an anxiety you don’t want to deal with as well. The world’s largest ticketing company, Ticketmaster, has found itself embroiled in a controversy – having appeared to change its refund policy to apply only to gigs that have been cancelled outright, meaning it would not be effective if the event had been postponed or rescheduled.

The New York Times reports that a change was apparently made to Ticketmaster’s US FAQs on March 14, changing the line ‘Refunds are available if your event is postponed, rescheduled or canceled’ to ‘Refunds are available if your event is canceled’. Understandably, there was a negative reaction online from fans holding tickets for upcoming shows that have been postponed or rescheduled.

Ticketmaster has since stated to USA Today that ‘its policy on postponed events has been consistent, though its wording online has been edited for clarity’. It claims that refunds for postponed and rescheduled events are (and have always been) at the discretion of the event organisers rather than Ticketmaster.

US ticketholders for a cancelled event should expect to receive a refund within 30 days. If you have tickets for a rescheduled or postponed event, these remain valid for the newly announced dates unless you are notified otherwise. US ticketholders for a postponed or rescheduled event who want a refund can check if the event organiser is offering refunds via their Ticketmaster account.

In the UK, ticketholders will also get an automatic refund for cancelled events – but also have the option to request a refund for a postponed or rescheduled event, if they can’t or don’t want to attend the new date. Terms and conditions will vary in other countries, so check your local Ticketmaster website.

It’s still heartbreaking to miss out on a gig you were really looking forward to, but hopefully this should help as few fans as possible end up out of pocket because of circumstances far, far beyond their control.

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