Are ticket sales facing their biggest reckoning?

Poor organisation and dynamic pricing have placed global ticket retailers in the hot seat. 

News of an Oasis reunion sent the UK into a frenzy of nostalgia that’s defined much of the past few weeks. But when tickets finally went on sale last Saturday, fans were faced with a throwback they hadn’t anticipated.

It wasn’t a surprise album or an on-stage brawl from the Gallagher brothers, but an old-fashioned struggle with the ticket industry. Hours’ long online queues, ‘dynamic’ pricing, and thousands of disappointed hopefuls – as it turns out, the Oasis reunion tour really did have everyone looking back in anger.

The aftermath of ticket sales is familiar to anyone who’s tried getting a seat at a hotly anticipated gig in the past few years.

From Beyonce’s Renaissance tour to Taylor Swift’s ongoing global shows, major ticket retailers like Ticketmaster have faced growing backlash for consistently poor organisation and inflated prices, which leave many fans with two equally miserable options: either give up, or pay money they can’t afford.

And yet little seems to change in the ticket industry itself. That is, until Oasis ticket sales launched an international outrage against so-called ‘dynamic pricing’, a process which essentially allows retailers to control and shift the cost of tickets depending on consumer demand.

Hopeful customers were faced with queues up to four hours long on the Ticketmaster site last week, watching as updates promised them tickets were ‘still available’. When they finally reached the checkout, however, they were shocked to find prices as high as £500.

Now, the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has launched an investigation to determine whether Ticketmaster breached consumer protection law.

@TicketmasterUK are you trying to wind me up more? Yes I still want @oasis tickets but apparently registering for the first ballot, queuing for 10 hours, being called a bot and sitting on resale sites all week didn’t make me eligible for the September shows! Thanks anyway… ✌🏼 pic.twitter.com/vA3getLpKA

— Samantha J (@MoonChop79) September 9, 2024

It comes after the UK government said it would include ‘dynamic pricing’ in its wider consultation on ticket prices, after a run of bad experiences for consumers across the US and UK under Live Nation, Ticketmaster’s parent company.

Dynamic pricing, a system where ticket prices rise and fall based on demand, is hardly new. We’ve seen it in action every time we order an Uber in a rainstorm or try to book a last-minute flight during the holidays.

The principle is simple: if something is in demand, the price goes up. And in a capitalist system, it’s hard to argue with that logic. If fans are willing to pay hundreds – or even thousands – of pounds for a glimpse of their heroes, why not let the market decide?

The problem is that in this scenario, the outcome feels more like exploitation than economics.

Ticketmaster and artists’ management companies have been quick to justify dynamic pricing as a tool for combating scalpers and ticket touts.

By letting prices rise as demand spikes, they claim to be closing the gap for resellers who have historically snapped up tickets at face value only to flip them for a hefty profit.

Certainly sounds plausible. But there’s a flaw to the logic. The idea that dynamic pricing is somehow a gift to fans – a way of protecting them from scalpers – begs the question: if prices are going to skyrocket anyway, who cares whether it’s Ticketmaster or a tout making the extra cash? The outcome is the same – fans get priced out.

In the financial world, we’ve already solved this problem. And no, it doesn’t involve charging consumers more under the guise of fairness. As a recent Financial Times article highlighted, ticketing platforms could adopt the kind of measures financial services firms use to curb fraudulent trading.

Instead of jacking up prices, why not use secure, traceable technology to ensure tickets are sold to genuine fans rather than bots or resellers?

The frustration that erupted over the Oasis tickets debacle is part of a much larger issue in live entertainment.

The system leaves fans feeling like collateral damage in a war between profit-hungry corporations and price-gouging resellers.

The CMA’s investigation may be a step towards fixing this broken market, but that won’t necessarily amount to meaningful change.

Either way, it has exposed one uncomfortable truth: no matter how loud the fans chant, the real encore is always for the money.

Meanwhile fans are left navigating a system where their loyalty is leveraged, not rewarded. As it turns out, the only thing more expensive than an Oasis ticket is the price of nostalgia itself.

Roll on the scramble for Linkin Park tickets today.