Continuing their ongoing battle with Ticketmaster, jam rockers String Cheese Incident sent 50 fans to the box office of LA's Greek theater armed with $20,000 in cash from the band. Each was on a mission to buy eight tickets for $49.95 plus any services charges for the group’s show there in July. Then the 400 tickets were sent back to String Cheese's Boulder HQ and put back on sale on the band's web site for the very same $49.95, sans most charges.
“We’re scalping our own tickets at no service charge,” Mike Luba, one of the group’s managers, told the
New York Times. "I would argue that on some level they are our tickets.”
This small protest is part of what endears the band to their fans. The group is even eating the credit card processing fees for orders on their own site. “It costs us money to sell the tickets,” Keith Moseley, the band’s bassist, said. “But we are going to eat that cost this summer in order to make a better deal for our fans and let them know how much we appreciate them.”
Purchasing a ticket directly from the band does come with a $12 to mail tickets by United Parcel Service - still cheaper than buying through Ticketmaster. So far, Ticketmaster has refused to comment.
