Tickets for the Oasis Live ’25 tour went on general sale on Saturday (31 August) at 9am, while tickets for the Dublin gigs went on sale an hour before.
But fans of the ‘90s indie band found that tickets for concerts listed at £148.50 were rebranded as ‘in demand’, with the price more than doubling by the time they reached the front of the virtual queue.
The only place to secure a ticket for the Gallagher brothers’ reunion shows in Wembley, Cardiff, Manchester, Edinburgh and Dublin was via Ticketmaster. Tickets officially went on sale on Saturday morning, with presale access granted to fans who had registered in advance.
Hundreds of thousands of Oasis fans waited for hours in ‘virtual queues’ to get their hands on tickets for the shows. But when they finally got the chance to buy tickets, many were met with prices far higher than face value. Some tickets initially advertised at £148.50 were relabelled as ‘in demand’ tickets and on sale for £355.20.
The ticket price increases were due to a strategy known as ‘dynamic pricing’ which adjusts ticket prices in real-time based on demand. Both Oasis and Ticketmaster would have agreed this strategy before the tickets went on sale.
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Dynamic pricing is not new, but its use in the live music industry has become increasingly controversial. While artists and promoters argue that it helps to combat touts and ensure that more money goes directly to the performers, critics claim it prices out real fans.
Social media platforms were flooded with complaints all weekend, with #OasisLive25 trending on X.com for all the wrong reasons.
The official Oasis X account posted that Oasis Live ‘25 tickets could only be resold at face value via Ticketmaster or Twickets, not other secondary ticketing sites, seemingly ignoring the fact that these sites were hiking up prices for the band’s fans.
A consultation into ticket resale websites has already been announced by the Government, and will start in the autumn.
Commenting on Oasis, culture secretary Lisa Nandy said she wanted to end “rip-off resales” and added that it was “depressing to see vastly inflated prices excluding ordinary fans” from gigs.
Unhappy fans urged to contact Trading Standards
Sylvia Rook, lead officer for fair trading at the Chartered Trading Standards Institute (CTSI), said while dynamic pricing is an accepted practice for holidays, flights and taxis, “the difference here is that consumers are informed of the price before they decide to make a purchase”.
Rook said: “In this case, the public were given a price for tickets, and were not informed until they finally got to the front of the queue, that the price had increased. This undoubtedly meant that many consumers have overreached and ended up spending much more than they originally intended. Many other consumers ended up disappointed after deciding not to proceed to pay the vastly increased prices.”
She explained that dynamic, or fluid pricing, is not specifically prohibited by consumer protection law, but the important factor is that consumers are not misled by the indicated price.
“It is a breach of the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 if a trader misleads consumers regarding the price of goods and services, if that causes the average consumer to take a different ‘transactional decision’. In this case many consumers would not have joined the queue had they known that the price would have increased by the time they were able to purchase, and many fans could not afford the increased price.
“Anyone who feels they were misled by the promotion of the Oasis tickets and the ticket platforms promoting them is encouraged to report the matter to Trading Standards by calling the Citizens Advice Consumer Helpline on 0808 223 1133 if in England and Wales. In Scotland, contact Advice Direct Scotland on 0808 164 6000, or if in Northern Ireland, call Consumerline on 0300 123 6262,” she said.
Rook added CTSI will be working with the Government to see how consumers “can be better protected with regard to the sale of event tickets”.
Last week saw a raft of scam warnings after the Oasis Live ’25 tour was announced. Fans were warned to watch out for ticket scams and to only buy tickets from Ticketmaster.