Are Leonard Cohen Fans Being Gouged?

An old colleague I know on the west coast had an unwelcome surprise when he tried to get some tickets for the Leonard Cohen concert tour I mentioned a few days ago.

He went online the moment tickets went on sale and found that they were sold out, and that the only tickets available were from scalpers at absurd markups.

Evidently this is not a new problem. See this article about a lawsuit against Ticketmaster in Canada involving Bruce Springsteen, and this post on the Leonard Cohen message board.

Cohen himself, I surmise, doesn't get a nickel from this kind of price gouging, which takes advantage of his amazingly loyal fan base (which includes moi). The irony is that Cohen himself is a ripoff victim, as his manager made off with his life savings. Indeed, that's why he has to go on tour.

© 2009 Gary Weiss. All rights reserved.