Why you can’t get a refund for a postponed show from Ticketmaster

There’s a reason you can’t get a refund from Ticketmaster for a postponed concert — the online ticket seller doesn’t have your money. The venue does.

“I think there’s a lot of misperception about Ticketmaster,” Joe Berchtold, the president of Live Nation, the company that owns Ticketmaster, said on CNBC’s “Squawk Alley” on Tuesday. “Ticketmaster doesn’t sell these tickets and sit on a mountain of cash. Ticketmaster sells tickets and gives the cash over to the venues where the events are held.”

Over the last week, Ticketmaster has faced backlash from consumers seeking refunds for postponed live events.

Berchtold explained that in order for Ticketmaster to issue refunds it needs to work with the event venues, but those venues are closed due to the coronavirus outbreak.

“It’s a pretty big process to go through and the volume is so huge,” he said.

Berchtold said around 90{3c4481f38fc19dde56b7b1f4329b509c88239ba5565146922180ec5012de023f} of all impacted shows are in the process of being rescheduled; 10{3c4481f38fc19dde56b7b1f4329b509c88239ba5565146922180ec5012de023f} have been canceled. For the events that have been canceled, refunds have been issued.

But, he doesn’t expect performers or fans to be dissuaded from future concerts or shows.

“A year from now, 15 months from now, as we have the vaccine in place, we’re highly confident that concerts in 2021, 2022, will be bigger than ever,” he said. “The artists want to perform, the fans want to attend the shows. We’re very comfortable and confident that as we get through this, we’ll be able to get back to the normal of being able to go to the shows.”

Shares of Live Nation were up more than 4{3c4481f38fc19dde56b7b1f4329b509c88239ba5565146922180ec5012de023f} midday Tuesday, but are down more than 40{3c4481f38fc19dde56b7b1f4329b509c88239ba5565146922180ec5012de023f} since January.

Read all of CNBC’s coronavirus coverage here.