A ticket-holder for last month's James Taylor - Jackson Browne show in the Cleveland suburb of Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio has filed a complaint with the Ohio Attorney General’s Office of Consumer Protection.
Karen Lefton wants a refund for herself and “thousands of others” who either missed Browne's opening set or got there late due to “inaccessibility to the venue.”
Lefton, a First Amendment attorney who represented the Washington Post in a suit against the DEA over access to prescription opioid distribution data, says she filed the complaint after two direct requests for refunds to Live Nation through its website went unanswered.
She says that her complaint asks that "Live Nation refund total fees paid to every purchaser whose ticket was not scanned that evening. With everything being done electronically now – buying tickets, downloading to your phone, scanning for admission, it will be easy to tell (1) Who got in; (2) at what time; and (3) at what rate tickets were being scanned.”
Another ticket holder, Bryan Hecht of Canton, Ohio, tells Cleveland.com that he left his house nearly two hours before the scheduled start time but “gave up and went home” after sitting in traffic on Akron-Canton Road for more than 90 minutes.
He says, “I have been to Blossom [Music Center] many, many times and it has always been a masterpiece of organization. This is disappointing and a huge black eye for Blossom when service is usually so outstanding there. Guests deserve better.”
Working traffic detail that night was Inspector Bill Holland of the Summit County Sheriff’s Office, who says three factors played a role in there being so much traffic: "construction on Route 8 and other access roads around the venue; people not being in the habit -- after a season off due to the pandemic -- of leaving early enough to beat the legendary Blossom traffic; and Blossom was understaffed.”
Live Nation, which has not commented on this story, has posted job ads for additional parking attendants at Blossom.