September 21, 2019

Black Keys Concert Turns Into Ticket Mayhem

The Black Keys perform live during the 2014 Turn Blue tour at the United Center in Chicago.Daniel DeSlover/ZUMA

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Last night the Black Keys performed at the Wiltern Theater in LA and there was a problem: fans who bought tickets from third-party vendors like StubHub were turned away. There was massive pointing of fingers over this, with TicketMaster saying everyone knew the tickets were nontransferable while the third-party guys said TicketMaster changed the rules 40 minutes before showtime. It was a mess. But being the pedantic nerd that I am, this is what jumped out at me:

Hundreds of fans who purchased tickets from usually reliable third-party vendors, such as StubHub, SeatGeek and Vivid Seats, had the same experience….A representative for the band and Ticketmaster said everyone who purchased a ticket through Ticketmaster or the band’s fan page got in. The concert was well-attended, with 97% of the 1,850-seat venue full.

So according to TicketMaster, there were only 55 empty seats. But according to the Times, “hundreds” of fans were turned away. This doesn’t add up unless duplicate tickets were sold, but the story doesn’t suggest that anything like this happened. It was all just a big communications cockup.

Maybe so. But this is one pedantic nerd who’d be curious to do a deeper dive into this to find out what really happened. The third-party vendors are all refunding the ticket prices to their customers, so it’s hard to see what motivation they would have had to cheat in the first place. Maybe something else was going on?

CORRECTION: Black Keys, not Black Flag. Black Keys, not Black Flag…

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

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