Yevhenii Zhmud and his wife, Anastasia, never made it to their dream Coldplay concert in Berlin (photo: Yevhenii Zhmud)
A Ukrainian couple hit by war have been repeatedly reaching out to Ticketmaster, Live Nation, and even Coldplay for a refund after the crisis left them unable to make it to their dream concert. Nobody responded.
When Anastasia Zhmud from Odessa, Ukraine, purchased tickets to see Coldplay perform in Berlin, she was eagerly awaiting fulfilling a lifelong dream — seeing her favorite band playing live in concert.
After purchasing two tickets for herself and her husband, Yevhenii Zhmud, on January 5th, and spending a total of €446.90 (including service charges), the unthinkable happened. Russian forces invaded Ukraine, making it impossible for the couple to make it to Coldplay’s Music of the Spheres World Tour concert in Germany.
With political turmoil and economic meltdown running rife in Ukraine, Anastasia contacted Ticketmaster and Live Nation Entertainment requesting that the tickets be refunded or resold — and communicated a dire need for the funds to survive the crisis in their country.
“My wife has been in love with Coldplay since childhood, and for the New Year, we bought tickets for the concert in Berlin on July 13th,” Yevhenii told DMN. “But it was hard to get to the concert — today it’s completely unrealistic.”
“We didn’t want the tickets to disappear, and we knew it was better to let someone else go. Plus, we really needed the money from the tickets.”
According to emails shared with Digital Music News, it appears that Anastasia’s correspondence to Ticketmaster and Live Nation began in June, with three weeks to go for the Coldplay concert. During this time, Anastasia and her husband anxiously awaited the resale of their tickets and the much-needed refund, but received no response.
Ticketmaster is a subsidiary of Live Nation Entertainment. Earlier this year, CEO and President of Live Nation, Michael Rapino, condemned the Russian invasion. The company became one of the first music giants to support sanctions imposed on Russia.
According to a statement issued to media on March 2nd, 2022, the live music company said, “Live Nation joins the world in strongly condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. We will not promote shows in Russia, and we will not do business with Russia. We’re in the process of reviewing our vendors so we can cease work with any and all Russian-based suppliers.”
Live Nation’s strong condemnation of the Russian invasion suggests that the company would provide assistance to the Ukrainian couple—making an exception and refunding the war-hit couple’s Coldplay tickets. But despite endless email requests and calls, the couple didn’t receive even one response.
A receipt of the Zhmud’s purchase of two Coldplay tickets.
After her repeated emails and calls to Live Nation and Ticketmaster, Anastasiia tried to contact technical support on the website, but to no avail. Even when she reached out to Live Nation via Instagram, no representative responded.
On July 12th, after once again sending an Instagram DM to Live Nation, Anastasiia received an automated email. This email listed the contact details for Live Nation, which led to another dead end.
Earlier this month, Digital Music News reached out to a Live Nation representative for comment, requesting an update on the couple’s ticket refund request. After our second attempt, the representative agreed to look into the matter; more than a week after that exchange, neither Anastasia nor Digital Music News have received a response.
Anastasia even took it upon herself to reach out to Coldplay regarding the matter — without success.
The band simply told her to contact the place where she purchased the tickets – i.e., Ticketmaster.
Coldplay has sold more than 4 million tickets for its current Music of the Spheres World Tour. Last month, the band became one of only 11 acts to earn more than $1 billion in career touring receipts, according to a tally compiled by Billboard.