“Fuck the customer”: Are hotels abusing the Oasis reunion for obscene profit?
Noel Gallagher has always been incredibly outspoken about music. One of his most passionate rants was about the fact that the music industry isn’t customer-led. He made a very good point about the fact that people don’t ask for innovation within music; innovation simply happens, and the consumer either accepts or rejects it. If not for this mindset, we wouldn’t have genre-defying albums.
“The consumer didn’t fucking want Jimi Hendrix, but they got him, and it changed the world,” he said, “And the consumer didn’t want Sgt Pepper’s, but they got it. They didn’t want the Sex Pistols, but they got it. Fuck the customer. The customer doesn’t know what he wants, you fucking give it to him, and he likes it.”
Noel has a point. For instance, when Oasis first started making music, no one had presented such a full-bodied rock-heavy style of indie to the public before, and it took off. The public didn’t know that that’s what they wanted; it just happened, and people suddenly connected with it.
Now, however, things are different. The customer knows exactly what they want: an Oasis reunion, as they have done for 15 years, and it’s finally happening. However, despite this shift in tone and the consumer having a clear idea of what they like and what they’re after, it seems Noel’s mindset of “fuck the customer” is still being applied, just in different ways. Namely, ripping the customer off.
The price of tickets to go and see Oasis on their reunion tour has recently been revealed, and for a standing ticket in Manchester and Wembley, fans will be looking to pay around £150. It’s slightly cheaper in Ireland, Scotland and Wales, but not much, as seats will be selling around the £80 mark while standing will come to over £100. The high price points don’t stop at tickets, though, as hotels have seen the opportunity to capitalise on the hype and will be charging guests obscene amounts as a result.
Though ticket prices are high, Oasis’s place in the hearts of people up and down the country means that they won’t deter fans from going to the shows. In anticipation of the tickets going on sale, people have already started booking hotels for the dates of the gigs that they’re keen to attend. However, not everything went to plan, as many customers had their hotel reservations cancelled, only to try and rebook and see that the price of a room had suddenly skyrocketed.
The Maldron Hotel in Manchester has come under fire recently as they have been accused of cancelling reservations and then tripling the price of rooms for people who want to rebook. “We are writing to inform you of an issue with your booking at Maldron Hotel Machester City Centre,” read emails that were sent out to a number of customers. “Due to a technical error, you have received a confirmation for a booking that was not successfully made. Unfortunately, we are unable to accommodate your booking at this time.”
Many angry customers reached out via social to get an explanation from the hotel chain. “I’m being contacted by several people who booked your hotel for the Oasis concert, to say their rooms have just been cancelled and are now back up for three times the price,” wrote Sacha Lord, the Night Time Economy Adviser for Greater Manchester, addressing the hotel chain on social media. “I’m sure this is a ‘computer error’… easy to correct. Do the right thing.“
The hotel chain received so much backlash that it had to release a statement confirming why people’s rooms were cancelled and stating that it had no intention of charging people obscene rates.
They wrote, “Due to a technical error with our booking system on 26th & 27th August 2024, substantially more rooms were booked than were available for the nights of the Oasis concerts on 11th/12th/19th/20th July 2025 at the Maldron Hotel Cathedral Quarter.”
They continued, “As a result, we are unable to honour all bookings made on these dates, and we are actively engaging with customers regarding these bookings.”
Maldron claims the cancellations resulted from a technical error, but this doesn’t explain why the price of hotel rooms skyrocketed when people went to rebook. They’re adamant this was “not an attempt to resell rooms at inflated prices,” but there is no clear evidence to suggest that.
Maldron isn’t alone in this, either. Hotels frequently increase their prices if big gigs are happening nearby, and while, to some, it might make economic sense, it also acts as another barrier to people engaging with the music they love. Overpriced tickets and hotels, paired with venues charging ludicrous amounts for food and drinks, mean people are steadily priced out of going to gigs, and there will eventually be a breaking point.
“Fuck the customer,” Noel Gallagher said when referring to innovation in music, but that sentiment has now changed, as it seems to apply to this ideology that event organisers, bands and hospitality can charge whatever they want for in-demand gigs and never feel any backlash for it. It’s exploitive, inherently wrong and desperately needs to change.
