Oasis tickets: Dynamic pricing row prompts government probe

Ministers are set to look into the use of ‘dynamic pricing’, amid an ongoing row about the “depressing” and “vastly inflated” cost of tickets to see Oasis next year.

A consultation into ticket resale websites had already been announced by the government, and will start in the autumn.

But after dozens of Oasis fans voiced anger over the cost of tickets surging as they queued for hours online, the government also confirmed it would look into the controversial practice.

Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy said she wants to end “rip-off resales” and ensure tickets are sold “at fair prices”.

Dynamic pricing on Ticketmaster, where tickets to the reunion tour were originally sold and where prices rise in line with demand, sparked criticism from many fans after some tickets rose to more than £350 – up from £135 when the sale began on Saturday.

It is not a new phenomenon and is allowed under consumer protection laws.

Ms Nandy said it was “depressing to see vastly inflated prices excluding ordinary fans” from gigs.

Outlining the government review’s scope, she said ministers would look at “issues around the transparency and use of dynamic pricing, including the technology around queuing systems which incentivise it”.

Fellow minister Lucy Powell, leader of the House of Commons, was among those hit by dynamic pricing over the weekend. She eventually forked out more than double the original quoted cost of a ticket for an Oasis show.

She told BBC Radio 5 Live that she did not “particularly like” surge pricing, but that “it is the market and how it operates”.

Other fans were not so forgiving, with one, Jamie Moore, saying he had never felt “so let down by a website” in his life.

Ticketmaster has said it does not set prices and that it is down to the “event organiser” who “has priced these tickets according to their market value”.

Meanwhile, ticketing websites were praised for coping with the “enormous demand” for Oasis tickets by Jonathan Brown, chief executive of the Society of Ticket Agents and Retailers, who insisted prices would have been set by the band.

Oasis and the band’s promoter have not responded to these claims.

Ms Nandy said if the government worked 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”.

Before he became prime minister, Sir Keir Starmer backed a move to introduce a cap on prices for resold tickets and limits to how many tickets a person can resell.

During a speech in March, he said access to culture could not be “at the mercy of ruthless ticket touts who drive up the prices”.