Ticketmaster “may have breached” laws over Oasis tour tickets, UK watchdog reveals
Following an investigation into the Oasis ticket pricing scandal involving dynamic pricing, the UK’s watchdog, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), has stated that Ticketmaster “may have breached” consumer protection law.
Last summer, Ticketmaster sold more than 900,000 tickets for the forthcoming Oasis reunion tour which is set to take place across stadiums in the UK and Ireland this summer. However, it was unknown before tickets went on sale that dynamic pricing would be in place, which led to some paying as much as £355 for tickets that were advertised at £149.
Oasis later distanced themselves from the dynamic pricing strategy by adding two more Wembley Stadium shows that were only available if fans were successful in a ballot. They also issued a statement that read, “Oasis leave decisions on ticketing and pricing entirely to their promoters and management, and at no time had any awareness that dynamic pricing was going to be used.”
An investigation into Ticketmaster’s conduct was then launched by the CMA who have now revealed they are “consulting with the ticketing platform on changes to ensure fans receive the right information, at the right time.”
The investigation discovered two key main reasons for concern with Ticketmaster. Firstly, the CMA noted, “Labelling certain seated tickets as ‘platinum’ and selling them for near 2.5 times the price of equivalent standard tickets, without sufficiently explaining that they did not offer additional benefits and were often located in the same area of the stadium. This risked giving consumers the misleading impression that platinum tickets were better.”
Secondly, they also said: “Not informing consumers that there were two categories of standing tickets at different prices, with all of the cheaper standing tickets sold first before the more expensive standing tickets were released, resulting in many fans waiting in a lengthy queue without understanding what they would be paying and then having to decide whether to pay a higher price than they expected.”
The CMA state that since the investigation began Ticketmaster has made changes to areas of its process but the UK watchdog says they do “not currently consider these changes are sufficient to address its concerns.” They are now consulting with Ticketmaster over further changes they can make.
Hayley Fletcher, interim senior director of consumer protection at the CMA, said in a statement: “Fans reported problems when buying Oasis tickets from Ticketmaster and we decided those concerns warranted investigation.”
Fletcher continued: “We’re concerned that Oasis fans didn’t get the information they needed or may have been misled into buying tickets they thought were better than they were.”
Ticketmaster are yet to comment on the CMA’s findings.
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