CLEVELAND, Ohio - Eric Church's current album is called "Mr. Misunderstood,'' but there's no way ticket scalpers can misunderstand his determination to crack down on the practice.
Church and his team have already identified and canceled many tickets bought by scalpers - including those for his Friday, Feb. 24, show at Quicken Loans Arena. At noon Tuesday, the singer and his team will cancel an additional 25,000 tickets bought by scalpers, including another 157 for the Cleveland show.
Those tickets will be released for sale to fans through legitimate sources - The Q itself and Church's ericchurch.com website.
The short version of the story is that Church is intent on making sure his fans don't pay more than face value for tickets.
A spokeswoman for The Q said that no paper tickets were issued - in accordance with the Church plan. So if you paid for one, you might be out of luck - and out of a seat.
If you think the ticket you purchased may be scalped, contact The Q box office either in person, online at theqarena.com or by email at contactus@cavs.com. Tickets for the Church concert had face values of $25, $45, $65 and $89, plus a service fee. The show here is not sold out, so tickets are still available at the box office, Discount Drug Mart locations, online at theqarena.com, ericchurch.com and by phone at 1-888-894-9424.
Certain brokers and websites - Stubhub.com, for one - do have tickets, but those are a cross-section of those legitimately purchased by fans and those bought by the scalping brokers. A spokeswoman for Church's camp said this is a classic example of those resale sites "wanting to be the hero'' so fans can get tickets. At least one site had a pair of pit tickets on sale for $800 each.
In a story published by the Associated Press, Church as quoted as saying he would do whatever he could "to stop what he calls a criminal organization that's making millions.''
"They buy thousands of tickets across the U.S., not just mine, and they end up making a fortune," Church said in an interview with the wire service. "They use fake credit cards, fake IDs. All of this is fraud."
Church and his team are in the process of developing a system to identify scalpers that with luck, could become an industry standard.
All artists appreciate their fans, but Church has taken it to a different level. When he released "Mr. Misunderstood'' in November 2015, he gave 80,000 members of his Church Choir fan club the album before it went on sale to the general public. The album has already attained gold status - sales of 500,000 or more - and was named the Country Music Association album of the year.
The connection between Church and his fans is such that each CMA Music Fest when he hosts a fan club party, he can call just about everybody in the first 10 rows of the show by name, said a spokesman for the singer.
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