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Hanna Montana ticket sales cause frustration
By ClubMileyCyrus.com | October 5, 2007
Story from WPTV.com
The hottest concert of the season is 14-year old pop star Miley Cyrus, daughter of musician Billy Ray Cyrus. She’s better known to her young TV fans as Hanna Montana. tickets to the shows, which have sold out in minutes, usually sell for about thirty to sixty dollars. But brokers and scalpers have been cashing-in on adoring adolescents who then pry their parents for tickets.
To say 12-year-old Ashlyn Johnston of Wellington is a fan of Hannah Montana is an understatement. She knows the words to all the Disney pop star’s songs. She has her CD’s and DVD’s. But what she doesn’t have is a ticket to next month’s big show in Fort Lauderdale. The teen’s tour is hotter than the Police, Bruce Springsteen and Justin Timberlake.
But even with a special web-fan pass-code, it still sold out - in just minutes, leaving Ashlyn ticket less. “She’s my favorite actress,” she says pouting. “I was really hoping to go for a birthday present.”
That look of disappointment is heartbreaking for Ashlyn’s mom Linda, who, like countless other parents, got shut out. “It’s the kids that are getting hurt by it,” says Linda, “And it’s the kids that make the stars what they are.”
Most frustrating, she says, are the scalpers and ticket brokers who have gobbled-up the seats. Knowing the kids will tug on their parents heart-strings, they’ve been asking hundreds of dollars a piece on popular web-sites like Stub Hub. Front row? Their asking 6 thousand dollars each on another site.
“I don’t what else there is to do except spend the money on the tickets - which I can’t afford to do that.”
“People who actually want to be at that concert should be able to go,” says Ashlyn’s friend Jenny who was fortunate enough to score a ticket. But it wouldn’t be the same, she says, without her friend. The girls’ moms have contacted the show’s promoters, the venue Bank Atlantic Center, Ticketmaster and even Disney to voice their disappointment. But the response, or lack thereof, has only left them more frustrated.
“And they didn’t seem to care,” says Linda.
“Somebody’s gonna have to do something so that these kids aren’t the ones - I think - being taken advantage of,” says Jenny’s mom Peggy Mezzetti.
A spokesman for San Francisco-based Stub Hub is advising parents to sit tight. Prices, they predict, will come down as the concert dates approach. But in Arkansas the Hannah hysteria has already prompted a criminal investigation. The attorney general there is looking into whether inflated on-line sales may have violated state law.
Topics: Miley News |
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