Fans Look Back In Anger As The CMA Confirms It Will Investigate The Dynamic Pricing Of Oasis Ticket Sales

The most recent widespread criticism of algorithmic dynamic pricing has been regarding Oasis’ ticket sales for the band’s long-anticipated reunion tour via the online ticketing platform Ticketmaster.

Fans have complained that they ended up paying significantly more than expected: in some cases, prices more than doubled, from less than £150 to over £350 per ticket.

Oasis responded to the outcry by issuing a statement to PA Media confirming that the band did not know dynamic pricing would be used and that they had left decisions on ticketing and pricing entirely to their promoters up to their promoters and management.

Additional tour dates are to be made available by an invitation-only ballot.

On 5 September 2024, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), the UK’s competition regulator, announced that it would investigate whether Ticketmaster has breached consumer protection law.

Ticketmaster calls itself the world’s biggest entertainment ticketing platform and is estimated to hold over 50% of the market share in the UK’s ticketing industry.

Ticketmaster is one of the official sellers for the Oasis tour and has said that the Oasis tour promoters set the ticket pricing policy, not Ticketmaster.

The BBC has noted that the three promoters for the Oasis reunion tour are all linked to Live Nation Entertainment Inc (Live Nation), the US company that owns Ticketmaster. Earlier this year, the US government issued an antitrust lawsuit against Live Nation because it unlawfully exercised its monopoly over the ticketing industry in the US.

The CMA’s investigation into Ticketmaster will examine whether when selling Oasis tickets:

• Ticketmaster engaged in unfair commercial practices;
• Buyers were given clear information to explain that the tickets could be subject to price rises and how this would operate, and
• Buyers were put under pressure to buy tickets within a short period at a higher price than they expected to pay.

The CMA is at the initial stage of its investigation and is gathering information from various sources, including Ticketmaster, the event organisers, Oasis’ management, and fans who bought or tried to buy tickets on Ticketmaster’s platform.

The European Commission’s guidance on UCPD is still applicable to CPUT and focuses on the following pricing practices:

• Dynamic pricing – where prices are adjusted depending on demand. Surge prices on Uber and the rest of the ridesharing sector are a good example.
• Price discrimination – where traders apply different prices to different groups of consumers for the same goods or services.
• Personalised pricing – where traders personalise prices for specific consumers based on online tracking and profiling data. This can be deemed an aggressive practice, for example, where personalised advertising is so persistent that it impairs the consumer’s judgment.

Drip pricing is another potentially unfair strategy common in the transport, food delivery and hospitality industries, where the total price ends up being much higher than advertised due to the addition of ‘hidden’ but necessary extras.

A key issue with many of these practices is that consumers are unaware that these strategies will apply to their purchases.

Consumer data is being used to inform these strategies, which is a problem. Traders must ensure they uphold the principle of transparency and allow consumers to opt out of the processing of their data.

As the Oasis ticketing outcry has demonstrated, while dynamic pricing offers a short-term windfall where the keenest customers pay more for a product, it could carry other long-term costs, such as damage to your brand and loss of goodwill.

Sarah Cardell, Chief Executive of the CMA, reiterated that it was important fans are treated fairly when they buy tickets and that the CMA welcomed the government’s recent announcement that it will consult on measures to provide stronger protections to consumers in the ticketing sector, wherever they buy their tickets.