Oasis tickets sales ‘shambles’ defended by industry chief

The Oasis ticket sales process has been defended by the boss of a ticketing industry body, after prices surged while fans queued online.

Many fans were furious to find tickets escalating in price as the sale continued on Saturday while others gave up queuing or were kicked out of the system while they waited.

Rachael Board from Devon, told BBC News she’d woken up “feeling like she’d been completely ripped off” after paying £495 for a ticket, far higher than the £150 she’d intended to pay.

But ticketing websites were praised for coping with the “enormous demand” by Jonathan Brown, chief executive of the Society of Ticket Agents and Retailers, who stressed prices were set by the band.

Throughout Saturday, hundreds of thousands of fans waited online to get tickets in the hope of being able to see Oasis live again, 15 years after the group disbanded.

Ms Board said that she decided to pay up when she finally made it to the front of the online queue as she got “caught up in the vibe”, but now she is questioning whether the ticket for one of the Wembley shows was worth it.

“I’ll be stuck paying it off on the credit card,” she said, adding that she doesn’t get “any extras” despite paying a higher price. “It’s just greed.”

Also among those waiting was the government minister Lucy Powell.

The leader of the House of Commons bought two tickets for Manchester in July for £350 each.

She told BBC Radio 5 Live: “Eventually [I] got through and bought a couple of tickets for more than I was expecting to pay.”

She said she did not “particularly like” surge pricing, but added: “It is the market and how it operates.”

She added: “You’ve absolutely got to be transparent about that so that when people arrive after hours of waiting, they understand that the ticket is going to cost more.”

“Dynamic pricing” on Ticketmaster, where prices rise in line with demand, sparked criticism from many fans, after some tickets were set at more than £350 – up from £135 when the sale began earlier in the day.

Mr Brown told the BBC pricing is set “by artists and their management”.

Oasis and the band’s promoter have been asked for a response to this.

Dynamic pricing is not new and allowed under consumer protection laws.

Mr Brown highlighted how surge pricing is also used for hotel bookings and travel tickets.

“People are used to that shift in price,” he said. “I consider it unfair when a train ticket is much higher than I’m willing to pay.”

Asked why there was a spike in prices later in the day when there must have been high demand from the outset, he said he did not know.

While he accepted not everything had gone perfectly, he said people “underestimated” what a big operation it was and praised the ticketing websites for dealing with the huge demand.

Mr Brown said technology is used to distinguish between a bot and a human being. Actions taken by a customer, such as rapid refreshing of a screen or using a VPN, could be seen to emulate a bot, he said.

“You have to have something in place that resists those bots, otherwise those tickets really are unfairly going to go to those people who are going to resell them,” he added.

During the ticket sales process, concerns were also raised about ticket touting -where secondary sites sell tickets at vastly inflated prices.

Ms Powell said that Labour had pledged in its manifesto to tackle ticket touting, and there would be a consultation on it in the autumn.

Noel and Liam Gallagher announced on Tuesday they had put their differences behind them, confirming the band’s reunion.

The group broke up in 2009 following a brawl between the brothers at the Rock en Seine festival in Paris.

The Oasis comeback tour sold out by Sunday evening for all the dates the band announced for the UK and Ireland next summer.

Separately, the BBC has also learned that the Information Commissioner’s Office is “making enquires” after a data breach Ticketmaster suffered in June.

Hackers ShinyHunters said they had stolen the personal details of 560 million customers, including names, addresses, phone numbers and partial credit card details.

Ticketmaster has not responded to requests for comment on the ICO’s enquiries.