[MUSIC] Two links relating to the high ticket prices of the Tragically Hip farewell tour

[rfmcdonald]

First is the National Post's "Get front-row-centre seats for the Tragically Hip’s final show in their hometown — just $5,999 a ticket".

Tragically Hip fans were dumbfounded by the speed at which scalpers grabbed concert tickets to the band’s final tour, with resale prices shooting up to thousands of dollars after a fan club pre-sale launched Monday morning.

In the band’s hometown of Kingston, the cost of seeing the Hip perform one last time ranged from $799 to $5,999 — per ticket — on the site atbtickets.com. Many of the tickets made their way to the site StubHub, where Kingston ticket prices ranged from $720 to $5,000.

On Ticketmaster, the tickets were priced between $60 and $126.

Some fans questioned how the tickets — which required buyers to use a code to complete a purchase — could turn up for resale within minutes. Others lamented that concerts that were raising money for charity were being exploited by scalpers.

“Did ANYONE get Tragically Hip presale tickets? Were there like, 10 released???” asked Twitter user Donna D. shortly after tickets disappeared.

“This is insane. Scalpers win, fans LOSE.”

Next is the CBC's CBC in talks to broadcast the Tragically Hip’s final concert".

Fans frustrated by sky-high ticket prices will be happy to know that the CBC wants to broadcast the Tragically Hip’s final show — but the deal isn’t done yet.

“We are interested in airing the Tragically Hip’s final show and are having conversations with the band to see if we can make it happen,” said CBC communications adviser Emma Bédard.

Ontario’s attorney general said Tuesday she’s prepared to try to find out why so many Tragically Hip fans couldn’t buy tickets for the group’s summer concerts — unless they wanted to pay many times face value on resale sites.

Attorney General Madeleine Meilleur, sympathetic with fans who would have to pay such tremendous prices to see the band, said the ministry needs to look at resale prices and insists she wants to fix the situation.

A number of fans outraged by the scarcity of tickets to the hotly anticipated concert series — announced at the same time the band said lead singer Gordon Downie had incurable brain cancer — urged the public broadcaster to help make the band’s farewell tour part of the public domain.