Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy has called for a review into “dynamic pricing” and secondary ticket sites.
It comes after tickets for Oasis‘ reunion tour went on sale over the weekend.
The Britpop band announced a huge run of comeback gigs on Tuesday (August 27), dubbed Oasis Live ’25. Set to take place next summer, the trek will see Liam and Noel Gallagher perform on stage together for the first time in 16 years and is expected to gross a staggering £400million.
Tickets went on sale on Saturday (August 31) and promptly sold out at 7pm.
However, some fans who managed to reach the other side of multi-hour long queues were left frustrated to find huge price increases on tickets, due to Ticketmaster’s dynamic pricing policy.
Ticketmaster have clarified on their website previously that tickets that are “market-priced” “may increase or decrease at any time, based on demand. This is similar to how airline tickets and hotel rooms are sold.”
NME has contacted Ticketmaster for further comment on the Culture Secretary’s remarks.
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Following Oasis’ pre-sale many tickets were also popping up on secondary ticket sites for as much as £10,000 prompting the band to warn fans “people attempting to sell tickets on the secondary market” will have them “cancelled by the promoters”.
We have noticed people attempting to sell tickets on the secondary market since the start of the pre-sale. Please note, tickets can ONLY be resold, at face value, via @Ticketmaster and @Twickets. Tickets sold in breach of the terms and conditions will be canceled by the…
— Oasis (@oasis) August 30, 2024
Now the Culture Secretary has said it was “depressing to see vastly inflated prices” and said surge pricing would be included in a government review of the secondary gig sales market.
Nandy said (via Sky News): “After the incredible news of Oasis’s return, it’s depressing to see vastly inflated prices excluding ordinary fans from having a chance of enjoying their favourite band live.
“This government is committed to putting fans back at the heart of music. So we will include issues around the transparency and use of dynamic pricing, including the technology around queuing systems which incentivise it, in our forthcoming consultation on consumer protections for ticket resales.
“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.”
Ticket reseller Viagogo has also since defended selling Oasis tickets at inflated prices on its platform as a “legal” practice.
Oasis have partnered with resale platform Twickets where fans can buy unwanted tickets for no more than face value (plus booking fees).
As for surge pricing, this isn’t the first time Ticketmaster have come under fire over their strategy. Most notably, The Cure‘s Robert Smith previously took aim at the company, saying he was “sickened” when he saw Ticketmaster fees for the band’s tours totalled higher than the face value itself.
He continued: “To be very clear: the artist has no way to limit them. I have been asking how they are justified. If I get anything coherent by way of an answer I will let you all know.”
After cancelling over 7,000 tickets on secondary resale sites, Smith was later able to convince the ticketing giant to issue small reimbursements to verified ticket buyers to compensate for “unduly high” fees. He later had to ask Ticketmaster to explain why tickets in its promised face value ticket exchange were “weird” and “over priced”.
Paramore’s Hayley Williams also previously told the company to “get their shit together”, saying: “We don’t take it lightly, we know, honestly, especially now, it’s a huge sacrifice to come to a show because Ticketmaster need to get their shit together.
“We’ve put a lot of pressure on ourselves too because we were like, ‘People are spending money that they don’t have to come and hang out with us and we better give them something that’s worth that’. We just love you so much.”
Elsewhere, some Oasis fans complained about being kicked out of the queue after being mistaken for bots, while those attempting to purchase accessible tickets reported being unable to get through to the phone lines, despite some fans calling the designated number over 400 times.