There’s one reason why so few of us seem to be able to get Tragically Hip tickets. It’s not because Gord Downie’s final tour is too short or because the stadiums are too small. It’s because of one corporation’s insatiable greed: Ticketmaster.

It’s bad enough that Ticketmaster introduced massive extra fees on top of the price of a ticket. Experts believe that only a fraction of tickets to major concerts or sporting events ever come up for sale to the general public. The vast majority are held back and distributed to insiders and scalpers who then sell for incredible markups.

Thousands of diehard Hip fans who were ready to click their order in the second tickets went on sale have reported coming up empty -- only to see them pop up on resale platforms like StubHub moments later for thousands of dollars.

It’s not right. Tell the Canadian Competition Bureau to crack down on Ticketmaster’s monopoly.

Ticketmaster won’t say how many tickets it releases for general sale, but critics who study ticket sale trends suspect it’s very little. Ticketmaster also just settled a $400 million class action lawsuit where plaintiffs alleged Ticketmaster misrepresented its fees and overcharged customers. And then when it offered free ticket vouchers to those affected, it turned out that tens of millions of people probably won’t be able to use them.

Ticketmaster’s iron grip on popular concerts and sports events has been going on forever. Scalping used to be illegal. Now corporations are making billions helping scalpers gouge regular music and sports fans like us.

Ticketmaster: Couldn’t come at a worse time. Let’s remind the king of scalpers it’s supposed to be about the music.

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