Can you believe a massive sale on a highly in-demand concert went smoothly on Ticketmaster? No? Because it didn’t. Oasis fans ran into a number of issues when tickets for the band’s U.K. reunion shows went on sale, from bot accusations to blips with dynamic pricing. Now, the U.K. government is planning to investigate Ticketmaster’s dynamic pricing model.
Ticket-mard-er
August 31: Tickets for the Oasis reunion tour in the U.K. and Ireland went on sale on Saturday, and it was an absolute mess. Rolling Stone reports that over 1 million people joined the queue to get tickets, and many were met with issues. Some people were accused of being bots and got kicked out of the queue; others made it through but had their purchases suspended. Ticketmaster claims that a limited number of tickets are still available despite fans still having problems completing their purchase. If there isn’t any more salt to be added to the wound, the same standing room only tickets that were once £150 got bumped up to £350+ through dynamic pricing — a feature where if a concert grows in demand, so does the price of tickets. They renamed them “in-demand standing tickets,†but like children stacked on each other in a trench coat, the disguise did not work.
If you’re willing to bite the bullet and buy resell, well, you might not have any luck. Oasis and Ticketmaster U.K. both reiterated that any tickets sold on third-party resale sites will be “cancelled by the promotersâ€; the only valid resale tickets will be from Ticketmaster or Twickets and are only sold at face value. But how could you resell tickets you never got in the first place?
Another investigation
September 3: As fans look back at the Oasis ticket sale in anger, the U.K. government is going to take a closer look at Ticketmaster. Prime Minister Keir Starmer told the BBC that following the Oasis mess, his government would be including dynamic pricing in an already planned investigation into ticket resellers. That comes after issues with Ticketmaster’s Eras Tour sale prompted multiple inquiries from the American government, including a Senate hearing, fee restrictions, and a massive antitrust lawsuit. Yeah, it’s definitely — not maybe — a bad time to be Ticketmaster.
The move comes after dynamic pricing even hit the U.K. government — Lucy Powell, leader of the House of Commons, told the BBC she ended up paying more than double the sticker price for her Oasis tickets. Culture minister Lisa Nandy told the BBC they would be looking into “issues around the transparency and use of dynamic pricing,†while Starmer added that the inquiry “may well mean adjustments†to ticketing in the U.K.