The Cure has achieved the highest-grossing tour of their career, despite keeping ticket prices intentionally low.

The legendary British band said they wanted their North America tour “to be affordable for all fans and we have a very wide (and we think very fair) range of pricing at every show”.

The average ticket price for concerts on the Lost World Tour was $68.54 — 37% less than the average ticket price for the year’s other top tours, according to Billboard.

The 30-date tour sold 547,000 tickets for a gross of $37.5 million

The 30-date tour sold 547,000 tickets for a gross of $37.5 million. Both numbers are new career bests: the band’s previous high-water mark for tickets sold in the US was 402,000 in 1992, while they more than doubled the gross revenue of their 2016 jaunt ($18 million).

As part of the on-sale process for the tour, the band opted out of Ticketmaster’s “platinum” and “dynamically priced” ticket options, and restricted ticket transfers in markets where he was legally allowed to do so.

Frontman Robert Smith also compelled Ticketmaster to offer partial refunds for “unduly high” transaction fees.

According to the singer, the band ultimately cancelled 7,000 concert tickets listed on secondary resale websites, which were resold to fans and the original fees were donated to the charity Amnesty International.

Revisit IQ’s in-depth feature on The Cure’s biggest-ever European tour here.

Get more stories like this in your inbox by signing up for IQ Index, IQ’s free email digest of essential live music industry news.

The Cure has cancelled 7,000 concert tickets listed on secondary resale websites, according to frontman Robert Smith.

In addition, the band has announced a plan to resell scalped tickets for their upcoming North American trek and donate the original fees to the charity Amnesty International.

When the Lost World tour was first announced, the Cure opted out of Ticketmaster’s platinum and dynamic pricing ticket options. The band also restricted ticket transfers in markets where it was legally allowed to do so in places like New York, Illinois, and Colorado.

“Any/all tickets obtained in this way will be cancelled and original fees paid on those tickets will not be refunded”

Following that move, Smith last Friday (31 March) announced: “Approx 7k tickets across approx 2200 orders have been cancelled. These are tickets acquired with fake accounts/ listed on secondary resale sites.”

The night prior, Smith said ticket buyers should not try to find a loophole with ticket transfer rules, and warned, “offering to sell/send account login details to get around [Ticketmaster] transfer limitations… any/all tickets obtained in this way will be cancelled, and original fees paid on those tickets will not be refunded.”

Pricing around the The Cure’s US tour has proved controversial in recent weeks, with the singer having criticised Ticketmaster for “unduly high” fees charged in the Verified Fan onsale for the dates, some of which were more than the face value of the ticket. However, Ticketmaster later agreed to refund fans some of the fees (between $5 and $10), as a “gesture of goodwill”.

Get more stories like this in your inbox by signing up for IQ Index, IQ’s free email digest of essential live music industry news.