SPOKANE, Wash. — The Foo Fighters are coming to Spokane this August, but not everyone who wants to go will be able to attend.
Officials with the Spokane Arena and TicketsWest have announced that ticket transfers and resales have been disabled ahead of the show. This means that anyone buying tickets from a third party may face difficulties receiving them due to transfer restrictions. Officials also said they can't guarantee any customers purchasing through a secondary site will receive their tickets.
Countless concert-goers missed out on tickets to the Foo Fighters show after they sold out on the first day of sales.
"Nothing was available," said Jonathan Rivera, a Foo Fighters fan. "Tried 20 times, did not get it and was told that they were gone."
Rivera said this isn't the first time he's faced difficulties getting tickets to a concert.
“My wife and I go to a lot of concerts," he said. "She's in a wheelchair and it's something fun we do all the time. And the last couple of years have just been getting harder and harder.”
Rivera was shocked that even the handicapped seats weren’t available for his wife. In his search for tickets on third-party sites, he soon found out he wouldn't have luck there, either.
“Everything's a rip-off these days," Rivera said. "Everybody trying to take advantage of everybody.”
According to the tour, anyone buying tickets from a third party, like StubHub, may face difficulties receiving them due to transfer restrictions. Officials are telling people to stay away from these secondary sites since tickets will not be transferrable through them.
Matt Meyer, the director of the Spokane Arena, said he’s not surprised by this change.
“I think it's the industry where the industry is starting to shift to protect the consumer a little bit more and the true fans," Meyer said.
Foo Fighters are just one of several artists that have been making this change. This is the third artist coming to Spokane that has done so, according to Meyer.
“It's just to combat all the secondary markets," he said. "That way, people aren't purchasing Foo Fighters tickets for $500 or more and then coming to the venue to find out that they don't even have a ticket.”
Since moving to the Inland Northwest, Rivera said the demand for tickets to high-profile artists has skyrocketed.
“Hopefully we get some tickets to the Foo, we've been wanting to see him for a long, long time," he said. "And they never come around this area. It's hard to get to see a lot of concerts.”
The Foo Fighters are setting up a fan-to-fan ticket exchange where people that do have tickets can sell them to other people. However, these sales can only be done at face value.
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