Prospective attendees wishing to secure a standing spot or even a chair at Croke Park for the Oasis event next summer would have been sorely disappointed if they simply turned up promptly at the usual 8am sales start time on Saturday. The concert’s ticket prices left several individuals appalled as concert planners MCD applied an alleged fluctuating, or trending, pricing structure, resulting in a more than two-fold increase in the cost of some standing tickets within the initial three hours of the sales window.
Despite tickets being offered as late as noon, four standing tickets were virtually worth €2,000 once service charges were included in the total, with some alleged premium ticket packages exceeding even this amount. Ticketmaster stated in the early afternoon that all tickets allocated for the two shows were sold, implying potential future ticket releases, urging fans to “return later as more might be made available”.
In the context of concerns that the alleged ‘in-demand’ pricing model saw some supporters charged more than double the amount that other supporters paid as ticket sales continued, demands have been made for oversight by consumer protection entities over the pricing for the Oasis show. Regina Doherty, Dublin MEP, called for “a comprehensive inquiry into Ticketmaster by the Irish Competition and Consumer Protection Commission following an unexpected 400 per cent price hike for Oasis tickets, affecting thousands of fans”.
She emphasised that standing ticket prices in Croke Park were advertised earlier in the week as €86.50 plus booking fees, however, when many individuals eventually navigated through the online queue that same day, they were presented with an identical ticket priced at €415.50. Doherty labelled this practice as “lacking transparency and clearly anti-consumer”.
The EU’s Digital Services Act has sections specifically aimed at ensuring online giants that control parts of the digital market do not create their own, potentially unfair, regulations for consumers. Regarding Ticketmaster’s “in-demand” pricing scheme, an investigation seems necessary, since the extravagant surcharge of €300 for some standing tickets for these inevitably popular gigs could be considered as exploitation.
As the ticket sales started, hundreds of thousands found themselves queuing in a virtual line. The system was overwhelmed by the massive flood of eager fans, leading to crashes and error messages such as “Error 503 backend.max_conn” appearing for some users. Even those who managed to get through faced a hard reality: their position in line was far from promising.
The popularity of the band and the excitement over their reunion after close to two decades was reflected in the soaring numbers: over half a million people were trying to secure tickets within the first ten minutes of sales.
One contributing factor to the huge demand was that the Croke Park sales in Ireland began a full hour before tickets were made available for the UK concerts. The organizers, MCD, didn’t clarify the reasoning behind this decision. However, it’s plausible that a large chunk of the 160,000 tickets was already bought by fans during a three-hour presale on Friday.
Considering that most were likely to purchase either pairs or fours of tickets, the chances of those at the tail-end of the line being able to afford tickets was practically zero. Many were taken aback by the high ticket prices, with a significant portion sold at a price far exceeding the initially announced cost.
Prior to the commencement of the presale, MCD announced that ticket prices would kick off at around “€86.50″, excluding the booking fees. However, after the addition of Ticketmaster service charges, the price for standing tickets for the band’s gig skyrocketed to €176.75. Seats in the stands were fetching a little over €200.
This was just the beginning of prohibitive prices. As witnessed during Taylor Swift and Coldplay concerts this summer, there were more exorbitantly priced tickets available. Some tickets with the offer of an invitation to a “pre-show bash and exhibit fan package” retailed at almost €550. Others that included merchandising access sold for over €400.
Within the first half an hour after the sales started, there were rumblings on social media platforms alleging that all tickets were sold out. However, at 8.35am, Ticketmaster assured fans that “the Oasis line was progressing as the fans finished their transactions. There are still tickets available for both dates, maintain your place in line.”
There was some truth to this, although the remaining tickets were of premium price. “We were 33k and only just got in,” confessed Yvonne Fahy, shortly before 9am. “There are only tickets left costing €400 or more.”
Brendan McDonald bemoaned the chaotic situation. “Many people I know couldn’t access the site at all. I managed to log in within 2 minutes, only to find a staggering 330k people in front of me. This is a slap in the face to Oasis Rock n’ roll! I’d prefer the good old days of waiting outside HMV for hours, that was a blast.”
John Brophy and Joan Byrne experienced further frustrations. Brophy made it to the point of purchase, only to find the remaining tickets were premium priced. When he tried to acquire them anyhow, he was sent back to the queue due to a connection problem. Byrne’s daughter had an equally frustrating ordeal where the site crashed upon processing her tickets.
Nonetheless, not everyone had a bitter experience. Cillian Mac Bradaigh, who was among the fortunate ones, managed to secure the presale tickets and commended the improved process.
George Thomson expressed his vehement disapproval of the decision to initially release the Irish tickets for sale, stating it as a “harsh move”. He commented: “Bots have snatched a chunk of 160k tickets. In under sixty minutes, the UK market will be swamped with 1.5m tickets, after our portion has been totally siphoned off. I am truly disheartened, having been lined up since 7.15am.”
Laura Buckley bemoaned “I began as the 1,700th in line, a situation I haven’t been in before! I reached the point of selecting my tickets and suddenly, the process came to a halt! It’s the anticipation that is most agonising.”
As tickets were being rapidly purchased, it was an anticipated consequence that social media would be inundated with posts of individuals advertising tickets for sale.
Patrons ought to be cognisant of the fact that highly publicised concerts like this are attractive to fraudsters, and a considerable number of tickets being offered may not materialise, thus, the risk of being duped is remarkably high.
The surge in sale offers elicited a warning from the official Oasis website. The announcement clarified, “We’ve perceived people trying to sell tickets in the secondary market since the commencement of the presale. Be aware that tickets can ONLY be legally resold at their original price, through Ticketmaster and Twickets.” should there be any violation of these rules, the promoters will annul the tickets.”
The high ticket prices prevalent in the current era is seen to be influenced by singer Taylor Swift.