UK Government Calls For Dynamic Pricing Review After Oasis OnSale

BRITAIN MUSIC OASIS TRIBUTE — A photograph taken on September 2, 2024 shows a mural created by artist Scott Wilcock aka Snow Graffiti, depicting Liam Gallagher (L) and Noel Gallagher (R) members of the British rock band Oasis, and painted outside the pub Whitefield, near Heaton Park, in Manchester, northern England. Oasis, which was integral to the 1990s Britpop scene but split in 2009, announced on August 27, 2024 it will reunite next year for a worldwide tour, starting with 17 concerts in the UK and Ireland. The band are set to play five of their concerts at Manchester’s Heaton Park – one of Europe’s largest urban open spaces. (Photo by PAUL ELLIS/AFP via Getty Images)

Dynamic pricing caused tickets for Oasis’s reunion shows in the UK to more than double during the onsale period and the UK Government will investigate the practice.

Lisa Nandy, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport in the new Labour Government, told broadcaster ITV Ticketmaster’s dynamic pricing will come under the microscope alongside an already planned review of secondary market resellers.

“It’s deeply depressing to have had this incredible moment where so many people – especially of my age – were incredibly excited that this event of a lifetime they thought may never happen, was happening… to queue for hours, only for many to find out when they got to the front of that queue that they couldn’t afford the tickets on offer,” she said. “We think as a government there’s an overhaul needed of the regulations around ticketing.”

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer told the BBC there are a number of things the government “can do” and “should do,” though he offered few specifics.

“Because otherwise you get to the situation where families simply can’t go or are absolutely spending a fortune on tickets,” he told the broadcaster.

Prices jumped from £148 to £355 ($194 to $465) during the onsale due to dynamic pricing, a ticketing system in which prices are evaluated and reset in response to demand. It’s an option artists can opt-in to when contracting with Ticketmaster.

As Schellion Horn, an economist explained to the BBC, consumers are used to dynamic pricing in many other areas of the economy, but in the UK, the use of the tool for concert ticketing was relatively new. The realization, she said, was that the original price was far below what consumers were willing to pay, meaning the tickets were underpriced initially.

Labour promised in its manifesto a review of the secondary ticket market and on the hustings, Starmer proposed a cap on how much above face value tickets could be resold for, among other reforms.