  Fans wanting to see Leonard Cohen at the National Arts Centre better be prepared to pay hundreds of dollars above face value for tickets being scalped online. (File photo)
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Within hours of selling out, tickets for Leonard Cohen's two concerts at the National Arts Centre were available online -- for up to $1,600.
Seats for the May 25 and 26 shows went on sale Monday at 10 a.m., priced from $65 to $250.
A half-hour later, all 4,600 tickets the NAC box-office and the ticket giant Ticketmaster Canada had were sold out, but many of those same tickets reappeared on TicketsNow.ca, a ticket reseller owned and operated by Ticketmaster, going for $300 to $1,600.
Last week, Ticketmaster agreed to pay the state of New Jersey $350,000 and change the way it does business in the U.S. following an outcry from Bruce Springsteen fans who felt they had been jobbed. The company is now being investigated by the attorney general of Ontario.
There have also been at least two class-action lawsuits filed against Ticketmaster in Canada over its services fees and charges and over its ownership of TicketsNow.
"Ticketmaster bought TicketsNow because they wanted a piece of the resale action," said a source close to the Canadian concert scene. "Ticketmaster's a good company, but the whole industry's becoming so greedy, it makes Ticketmaster look really bad."
Ticketmaster is hoping to expand its reach in the market with a plan to merge with Live Nation Inc., the largest producer of live music concerts in the world.
Live Nation produces more than 16,000 concerts for 1,500 artists in 57 countries annually, selling more than 45 million concert tickets a year.
That deal has raised anti-trust concerns in the U.S., where lawmakers fear the entity would control too much of the market.
Cohen's sellout wasn't the fastest at the NAC. Comedians Chris Rock and Jerry Seinfeld sold out their shows in about five minutes. Rock performed last August, and Seinfeld was here in 2003.
