Skyrocketing Price of Oasis Tickets Sparks U.K. Government Backlash: ‘Depressing to See’
Written by djfrosty on September 4, 2024
LONDON — The British government has pledged to look into the practice of dynamic pricing for music concerts after tickets for Oasis‘ highly anticipated reunion tour more than doubled in price on official ticketing platforms, prompting hundreds of complaints from disgruntled fans.
Tickets for the band’s 17-date U.K. and Ireland 2025 tour went on sale Saturday morning with prices starting at £65.00 ($85.00) for seating and £148.50 for standing tickets.
Fans’ excitement quickly turned to anger, however, after enduring long queues on the tour’s primary ticketing vendor, Ticketmaster, and then discovering that the cost of a standing ticket had soared to £355.00 without warning when they finally got to the front of the queue – due to high demand.
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Although tickets to all 17 shows sold out in less than a day, the unexpected price hikes provoked an angry backlash against Oasis and Ticketmaster from fans with hundreds venting their frustration on social media.
In response, the U.K. culture secretary, Lisa Nandy, said it was “depressing to see vastly inflated prices excluding ordinary fans from having a chance of enjoying their favourite band live.”
The cabinet minister said that dynamic pricing is one of the issues the government would be looking at as part of its previously announced consultation on the secondary ticketing market, which is due to begin in the fall.
Transparency and the technology that ticketing companies use to incentivize dynamic pricing would also be examined as part of the forthcoming review, said Nandy, adding that the newly elected Labour government is “committed to putting fans back at the heart of music.”
“Working with artists, industry and fans we can create a fairer system that ends the scourge of touts, rip-off resales and ensures tickets at fair prices,” she said in a statement.
Speaking to BBC Radio 5 Live on Monday, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer echoed the culture secretary’s concerns over secondary ticketing and said the government will get a “grip” on the issue of dynamic pricing to “make sure that actually tickets are available at a price that people can actually afford.”
“This is really important, because this isn’t just an Oasis problem,” Starmer told the BBC. “This is a problem for tickets for all sorts of events, where people go online straight away… and within seconds sometimes, sometimes minutes, all the tickets are gone, and the prices start going through the roof, which means many people can’t afford it.”
On Monday (Sept. 2), the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) said it had received 450 complaints about “misleading claims about availability and pricing” concerning the sale of Oasis’ tickets by Ticketmaster. The regulator said it was “carefully assessing these complaints” and couldn’t comment further. Ticketmaster did not respond to requests to comment when approached by Billboard.
Priced Out
Although dynamic ticket pricing has become an increasingly regular occurrence in the U.S. live music industry in recent years, Oasis’ comeback tour – which is being jointly promoted by Live Nation, SJM Concerts, MCD and DF Concerts – marks its most high-profile and potentially biggest roll out for live music concerts in the United Kingdom and Ireland.
As in other countries, the practice is commonly used by travel companies, taxis and hotels in the U.K., but it is understood to have only been fleetingly used for gigs and tours so far in the British touring market and, when it has, has failed to draw major scrutiny or attention.
The furore around dynamic pricing from U.K. politicians is further unwelcome news for Ticketmaster owner Live Nation, which was hit with an antitrust lawsuit earlier this year, filed by the U.S. Department of Justice and a group of 30 states, who accuse the concert giant of market dominance and demanding that it and Ticketmaster be broken up.
In the U.K., competition regulators looking into the live music business have so far largely focused on resale ticketing platforms such as Viagogo, which has previously been subject to numerous controversies, investigations and inquiries, culminating in the firm being ordered to offload its StubHub business outside of North America in 2021.
Calls for Stronger Protections
Scrutiny of all aspects of the live industry from governments and regulators in all major touring markets is nevertheless steadily growing.
Last year, the European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union, said that it was “aware of the concerns” about ticketing companies using dynamic pricing and was “monitoring the situation.” Excessive prices imposed “by a dominant company” would be in breach of EU laws, the commission warned at the time.
Prior to July’s U.K. general election, Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer said that, once in power, he would limit the number of tickets individual resellers could sell on resale platforms and give the U.K. competition watchdog greater powers to take “swift” action against services and scalpers who break the rules.
“The lack of transparency in live music overall is increasingly problematic. This is an opportune moment to look at the market overall,” says Adam Webb, campaign manager of consumer organization FanFair Alliance, who backs the government’s promise to examine dynamic pricing.
The U.K. Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has also welcomed the government’s pledge to strengthen consumer protections around ticket buying and said on Tuesday it is “urgently reviewing recent developments in the ticketing market, including the way dynamic pricing is being used in the primary market.”
“Consumer protection law requires businesses to be fair and transparent in their dealings with consumers, and businesses must give clear and accurate information about the price people have to pay, ” said a CMA spokesperson. “Failure to do so may breach the law.”