When Oasis announced a reunion tour after more than a decade of feuding, the band’s fans were delighted. But after waiting online for hours, many of them were outraged to discover that ticket prices had soared while they were in line — some more than doubling from their originally advertised price.
By Andrew Jeong
and Now the British government is looking into the practice of dynamic pricing, a model that allows ticket sellers to adjust prices according to real-time demand. Some Oasis tickets were first listed on Ticketmaster at around $180, but when fans were finally able to purchase them, they were priced at more than $460, according to the BBC.
Lisa Nandy, the British culture secretary, said that it was “deeply depressing” for fans to have spent hours queuing online for the “event of a lifetime, that they thought may never happen,” only for many to discover that they could not afford the tickets.
“There is an overhaul needed of the regulations around ticketing. We’ve already announced that this autumn we’ll be consulting on secondary ticketing and how to deal with ticket touts, and as part of that we’ll look at dynamic pricing, and, in particular, transparency around it,” Nandy said in a clip shared Monday by British media.
“Many of those Oasis fans had no idea … that a dynamic pricing model was in use. They thought that they were going to pay one price for a ticket, only to … find that they were paying hundreds of pounds more,” she said.
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Oasis, known for hits such as “Wonderwall” and “Don’t Look Back in Anger,” announced its return last month, ending a 15-year hiatus. On Friday, the band started selling tickets for performances in Ireland and the United Kingdom next year, but tickets had sold out by Saturday afternoon local time, according to the band’s official X account.
On social media, fans called out ticket sites and directed some of their anger at Oasis, which has yet to make a statement on the pricing issue. Ticketmaster, one of the vendors for Oasis tickets, could not be immediately reached for comment Tuesday. But the company told the BBC that prices were set by the event organizer and were priced according to their market value.
Dynamic pricing is considered legal so long as businesses do not violate price transparency and antitrust laws. The practice is used by airlines, hotels and ride-sharing apps, among others. The pricing method, as well as other practices in the concert ticking industry, has come under fire in recent years — especially during rushes for high-demand events.
When Bruce Springsteen fans tried to buy tickets to his concert in 2022, some reported finding tickets priced at $5,000. Later that year, astronomically high ticket prices also became a focal point during Ticketmaster’s disastrous rollout of presale tickets for Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour.
Critics say sticker shock can also come from other tactics, such as “drip pricing,” when ticketing platforms add fees to the initial ticket price just before check out. Experts have also pointed to the resale market, which can incentivize scalpers to hoard tickets and raise prices.
U.S. regulators have also taken notice of consumer complaints about ticket prices. In May, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit to break up Live Nation, the conglomerate that runs Ticketmaster, saying it runs a “monopoly” that imposes exorbitant fees on consumers.
Live Nation has vigorously denied charges that it is a monopoly, and sharply criticized the Justice Department’s lawsuit after it was filed.
The fiasco over Swift concert tickets also spurred a raft of proposals from legislators around the United States to lower the cost of concert tickets.
