Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has asked Bad Bunny this Wednesday to do a free concert in the Zocalo. With this unusual proposal, the president has ruled on the chaos that occurred last Friday at the artist’s concert at the Azteca Stadium, when thousands of young people were unable to access the event due to duplicate ticket problems. “I know that you are saturated and tired, because you work a lot, but I ask you to consider the possibility of coming to Mexico, to the Zocalo, hopefully and come,” he said, to later add: “We cannot pay him, it would have to be a collaboration with him.” The president, who has stated that he has instructed the Federal Consumer Attorney’s Office (Profeco) to return the money to the attendees, has avoided at all times mentioning the name of Ticketmaster, the ticket distributor.
It is not the first time that the president has invited artists to play in the main square of Mexico City, as he has already done with Belinda or Nodal, but he had never done so as a solution to an open conflict between a company and a government agency. Attorney Ricardo Sheffield emphatically stated just a couple of days ago that “corrupt and criminals” work within Ticketmaster, whom he accuses of overselling almost 2,000 tickets for the artist’s concert. The company has denied the accusations and maintains the version that the problem was “an unprecedented number of false tickets.” Profeco has opened an investigation into the company, which faces a penalty of up to 10% of its annual sales.
Faced with this schism, the president has gone off on a tangent. He has said that it gave him “a lot of feeling” to see the young people crying for not being able to enter the concert “because they cloned their tickets, because they were fraudulent.” “Yes, they are going to have to return the money and the surplus, but it is not enough, because many had the illusion of seeing it,” said Lopez Obrador: “Bad Bunny is not to blame, it is those who sold the tickets, but he could contribute.” The president has never spoken the name of TicketMaster.
The president has praised the “social dimension” of Bad Bunny, of whom he has said that “he is a supportive people”, “he is young and sensitive” and “he has been doing work together with Ricky Martin, together with Rene from Calle 13″, and he has assured that he does not lose anything by raising the concert so that “all the young people who do not have the possibility of doing so could enter.” Artists such as Silvio Rodriguez or groups such as Los Tigres del Norte have played in the Zocalo, who did charge for their performance. However, the president has pointed out that the Government could not pay for a supposed concert by the Puerto Rican, who has already finished his tour and has announced that he is going to take a break throughout 2023. “We take care of the stage and the lights, of course not so spectacular, because I was seeing how a palm tree flew out there in the Azteca and that can’t be done here, I can put that zip line on you”, he joked.
The problems in accessing the Bad Bunny concert were the latest example of the irregularities that Ticketmaster accumulates. Both Profeco and the Federal Public Defender have announced that they are collecting information to file a class action lawsuit from users. The company, which is based in London and has no Mexican shareholders, has assured that it will collaborate in the investigation against it.
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