After Oasis announced their 2025 reunion tour, fans went wild and naturally wanted to buy tickets to their UK and Ireland shows. Ticket sellers capitalized on the hype and are now being investigated.
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), the UK’s primary authority for competition and consumer protection, has investigated Ticketmaster after rows over its ‘dynamic pricing’ of Oasis tickets.
The English rock band Oasis announced it will play in various locations across the UK and Ireland in 2025. Oasis was created by two brothers, Noel (songwriter and lead guitarist) and Liam Gallagher (lead singer).
The band split up in 2009 after the two brothers' long, tumultuous relationship came to a head. Oasis has sold approximately 75 million records, making it one of the best-selling bands worldwide.
However, as lifelong fans waited in grueling online queues to purchase the tickets, they found something odd. The prices of tickets seemed to double from around £150 to over £300.
After fans' outrage, the CMA will determine whether Ticketmaster’s ‘dynamic pricing’ breaches consumer protection laws.
Dynamic pricing is the act of adjusting prices according to changing market conditions. Cases where dynamic pricing is used are when certain products are in high demand.
The investigation will consider various factors, including whether Ticketmaster engaged in unfair commercial practices, if fans were given clear and timely information about dynamic pricing, and whether buyers were put under time pressure to buy these tickets.
“The CMA is at the initial stage of its investigation and will now be engaging with Ticketmaster and gathering evidence from various other sources, which may include the band’s management and event organizers,” the UK government website reads.
The consumer protection authority urges those who attempted to or bought tickets to Oasis to reach out and discuss their experiences and provide evidence.
“Consumer law is clear – ticket sales sites must be transparent in their dealings with consumers and give clear and accurate information about the price people have to pay. Failure to do so may breach the law,” the UK government website reads.
The Gallagher brothers made a statement regarding the use of dynamic pricing, saying that they leave decisions on ticketing and pricing to their promoters and management, the BBC reported. The pair said that they weren’t aware that dynamic pricing would be used in Oasis ticket sales.
Ticketmaster has not had it easy of late, as they were affected by a data breach that happened earlier this year.
Live Nation confirmed that its subsidiary Ticketmaster suffered a data breach, as revealed by the regulatory filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
On May 20th, Live Nation “identified unauthorized activity within a third-party cloud database environment containing Company data (primarily from its Ticketmaster L.L.C. subsidiary),” the filing with the SEC reads.
Later, on May 27th, threat actor ShinyHunters posted the data of 560 million customers for sale on an illicit marketplace, asking for $500,000.
Live Nation is working with authorities to “mitigate risk,” but it does not expect losses from the incident.
Ticketmaster finally contacted its customers regarding the breach that exposed almost 560 million users but chose to omit what personal information may have been compromised.
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