U2.com responds: 'Vertigo Tour' Tickets: Latest News

(U2.com) -- Public demand for tickets for U2's 'Vertigo 2005' tour both in Europe and North America continues to break records.

To date over 600,000 tickets have been bought, with sold-out shows in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, Anaheim, San Diego, San Jose, Philadelphia, London, Manchester, Glasgow, Cardiff and Brussels.

Inevitably this staggering level of interest has meant that in every city where a show has been announced, demand has vastly exceeded supply. This situation has been particularly acute for those people attempting to buy general admission (standing/on the floor) tickets where the greatest demand has been chasing the smallest number of tickets - in every venue.

U2.Com would like to take this opportunity to apologise to those people, both U2.Com subscribers and those that attempted to buy tickets when they went on general sale, who were unable to obtain a ticket for their preferred venue.

Despite the technical difficulties that initially hampered the pre-sale, thousands of U2.Com subscribers in North America and Europe did manage to successfully purchase tickets for these shows.

It is the band's intention to return to North America for further shows in the fall and U2.Com subscribers, who have not been able to use their unique access codes so far, will be able to buy tickets for these additional dates. Once again these tickets will be available on a strictly first come first served basis.

As is now obvious from the number of tickets being re-sold at vastly inflated prices on sites such as e-bay, we are currently suffering the same 'scalping' problem that accompanies every successful tour. U2.Com in combination with the relevant authorities is doing all that it can to identify where these tickets have originated and, where it is possible, to have these sales cancelled.

Although we realized that some subscribers might be scalpers using multiple email addresses and reserved the right to cancel any ticket order, we underestimated the potential numbers of such scalpers/subscribers.

President of worldwide tour promoter TNA, Arthur Fogel, points out that 'Apart from the broker running the risk that the ticket order may be cancelled the reality is there's nothing to stop a broker from joining a fan club and being part of a pre-sale.'

We are sorry that this has happened and we would like to offer anyone who has a still unused unique access code the opportunity to get their U2.Com subscription money back.

(There will be full details of how to obtain your refund published on U2.com on Wednesday February 2nd.)

Please note that anyone who takes advantage of this refund offer will not be able to take part in any future U2 ticket presale.

U2.Com remains an enormously popular, award winning, free artist web-site. When the band's long established fan-magazine Propaganda closed (subscription to which gave the opportunity to purchase U2 tickets in advance of their public on-sale) a 'subscribers only' area was established on U2.Com. With a subscription fee of $40.00, in line with other subscription-based artist sites, U2.Com provided outstanding extra value content: enabling members to access full length audio and video streaming of U2's entire catalogue, a web based e-mail address, exclusive interviews and documentary footage, discount on U2 merchandise, as well as a unique code that allowed the member access to a ticket pre-sale.

U2.Com continues to provide constantly updated U2 news and inside information on its free site.

We are sorry if we inadvertently gave the impression that the $40.00 subscription guaranteed you the tickets of your choice.