by Jenni Rivera loved all of her fans, but it looks like those without legal documentation may be unable to enter her memorial Wednesday at the Gibson Amphitheater in Los Angeles.
Tickets to the two-hour event were available on Ticketmaster on Tuesday for a $1 refundable processing fee per ticket and were sold out within one hour. But ticket holders can only enter Wednesday’s memorial with credit card used to purchase the tickets and a matching photo ID – a precaution by taken by Ticketmaster to prevent ticket scalping.
RELATED: Thousands to pack Jenni Rivera’s funeral
Official Ticketmaster policy regarding paperless tickets – the type of electronic ticket issued for the Jenni Rivera memorial – is as follows:
“When you go paperless (available on select events), you get through the gate with two things you’re carrying around already: your photo ID and your credit card. No paper tickets means no forgetting them on the kitchen counter! At the gate they’ll swipe the credit card you used for purchase (you won’t be charged again), check your ID, and hand you a slip of paper with your seat location on it. Easy.”
RELATED: Jenni Rivera’s memorial details revealed
A recent blog post published by Ticketmaster adds that paperless ticketing — recently used by Bruce Springsteen during his 2012 Wrecking Ball Tour — “reduced scalping by at least 75% …[and] paperless ticketing prevents scalpers from cutting the line and getting all the good seats.”
Even so, the measure is seen by some critics as a way to exclude Rivera fans who may be undocumented immigrants.
“Since there’s a lot of young, undocumented and working poor who don’t have credit cards and/or a matching photo ID to gain entrance, they won’t be able to even attempt to be a part of the final farewell,” wrote Gabriel San Román in a column published in the OC Weekly. “This, even though Rivera’s music and life resonated with them deeply.”
Drawing comparisons to other celebrity funerals, Latino fans of “La Diva de la Banda” took to Twitter and objected the need for tickets and identification.
“This didn’t happen at Adan Sanchez Memorial! Fans just came & showed respect,” tweeted Ronnie Villaseñor, a Jenni Rivera fan from Arizona.
“Selena’s memorial was free and open to ALL her fans,” tweeted fan Ralph Garza on Tuesday afternoon.
“It’s the privatization and politicization of mourning,” tweeted Josh Kun, associate professor at USC’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.
