Best of Both Worlds Tour - Ticket Controversy

Ticket Controversy

Tickets for the Best of Both Worlds Tour were selling out quite rapidly. Nevertheless, ticket scalping was one of the primary reasons for it. Many tickets were immediately found for purchase on secondary markets, such as eBay or StubHub, selling for well over the face value of the tickets. Broker prices ranged from $350 to $2,000 for the tickets originally sold for $29 to $66. The shortage of tickets for the tour became so pronounced it gained national attention, with parents frequently expressing their outrage, discontent, and disappointment on behalf of their children. Vice president of Ticketmaster, Joe Freeman commented, "Hell hath no fury like the parent of a child throwing a tantrum. People who have been in this business for a long time are watching what's happening, and they say there hasn't been a demand of this level or intensity since The Beatles or Elvis ." In an instance, a girl was unable to undergo a surgery she needed due to monetary issues, so she sold her tickets to a show of the tour for enough money to pay for the surgery. Debra Rathwell, senior vice president of AEG Live said the tickets were priced and sold as fairly as possible and assured there as no conspiracy between those who handled the tour and brokers. "We do everything in our power to stop brokers from getting tickets, but it's impossible", she concluded. However, some brokers denied the allegations of purchasing most tickets for the shows. Brian Posey, owner of The Ticket Machine, an online broker based in East Lansing, Michigan, commented, "I've never seen this as far as availability for any show. It's never been that hard to get tickets for us. You don't see seats anywhere. Parents shouldn't blame brokers for snapping up loads of tickets." He continued to complain that the company was only able to purchase 28 tickets, while they usually averaged hundreds of tickets for hot tours.

Investigations were held in various states, including Arkansas, Michigan, and Missouri, which led to lawsuits that accused brokers of illegally reselling tickets from the Best of Both Worlds Tour. "When you allow the hijacking of the market, it's literally the worst of both worlds. You get charged too much, and there's no access for the locals", said Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon. Numerous ticket brokers accessed tickets prior to fans as a result of a software program by RMG Technologies Inc, which permitted its clients to circumvent Ticketmaster.com's CAPTCHA access controls, and use the copyrighted website in a manner that violated the site's "Terms of Use". Ticketmaster took legal action against RMG Technologies via the United States District Court for the Central District of California, claiming that the developed software for ticket brokers illegally "allows them to cut in line". RMG Technologies representative denied the allegations and said there should not be held accountable because Ticketmaster is getting still paid for the tickets. "This may be the only time in history that any seller sued its customers for paying them too much money", the attorney for RMG Technologies wrote in court documents.

In November 2007, Kerry Inman, a woman from New Jersey, filed a lawsuit against Cyrus' official fan club, MileyWorld, for not complying with terms. Memberships claimed fans subscribed to MileyWorld were supposed to be given priority for seats. While the site never guaranteed ticket availability, it claimed that members who logged on shortly after tickets became available would have a good opportunity to purchase tickets. "They deceptively lured thousands of individual into purchasing memberships into the Miley Cyrus Fan Club. The scenario has been replayed thousands, if not tens of thousands of times over the past few months", said the woman's attorney. Randy Philips, CEO of AEG Live, revealed the logical solution to all the tumult surrounding the Best of Both Worlds Tour, which he and Cyrus herself both longed for, was to add more shows, but was made impossible because Cyrus was already scheduled to film Hannah Montana: The Movie in early 2008. Instead, the lawsuit was responded with the addition of a total of 45,000 extra seats that were offered for a limited time to MileyWorld subscribers for the last 21 shows of the Best of Both Worlds Tour.

With more seats, more radio contests, tickets auctions, and other sorts of contests were offered so fans could attend concerts. One contest had participants writing an essay about an event that impacted them the most to win a makeover that included a Hannah Montana wig, flight for four to Albany, New York, and four tickets to the January 9, 2008 concert held at the Times Union Center in Albany. The winner, a 6-year-old girl from Garland, Texas, had won with an essay stating the girl's father had died April 17, 2007 in a roadside bombing in Iraq during the Iraq War. However, the girl's mother, Priscilla Ceballos, later admitted that the essay and the military information she provided about her daughter's father were untrue. "We did the essay and that's what we did to win. We did whatever we could do to win, but when asked me if this essay is true, I said 'No, this essay is not true'", Ceballos said. The prizes were awarded to the runner up. The mishap garnered much attention from the media because it exemplified parents' desperate long to please their children.