The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has warned that Ticketmaster may have “breached the law” and “misled fans” during the Oasis ticket sale last summer.
The UK government launched a consultation in January into the ticket re-sale market with the aim to “better protect fans, improve access to live events and support the growth of the UK’s world leading live events sector”.
The consultation follows the controversy surrounding the Oasis Live ‘25 ticket sale last summer, which left thousands of fans infuriated as the cost of tickets appeared to surge due to demand without warning. Both the CMA and the European Commission are investigating the issue.
Furthermore, Oasis and Ticketmaster announced in October that they planned to cancel more than 50,000 tickets for the tour that were sold via non-endorsed secondary ticket sites. That process went into action in February.
Now, the CMA have given an update on their investigation into Ticketmaster, saying they are concerned that the company may have “breached consumer protection law” in two key ways.
First, they say that Ticketmaster labelled certain seated tickets as ‘platinum’, and sold 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”. They claim that this risked giving customers the misleading impression that platinum tickets were better than standard tickets.
The other potential breach of law concerns Ticketmaster not informing consumers that there were two categories of standing tickets at different prices. It adds that all of the cheaper tickets were sold first before the more expensive tickets were released, leading to customers waiting for long periods without understanding they would have to pay more.
The CMA added that despite the widely reported effect of so-called ‘dynamic pricing’ on the Oasis sale, where ticket prices fluctuate in real time based on levels of demand, they have “not found evidence that this was the case”. Instead, they say that Ticketmaster released the lower price tickets first and once they sold out, began to sell the the higher priced tickets.
“The CMA is concerned that consumers were not given clear and timely information about how the pricing of standing tickets would work,” they added. “Particularly where many customers had to wait in lengthy queues to see what tickets were available”.
Ticketmaster responded to NME’s request for comment on CMA’s investigation, saying: “At Ticketmaster, we strive to provide the best ticketing platform through a simple, transparent and consumer-friendly experience. We welcome the CMA’s input in helping make the industry even better for fans.”
They added that Ticketmaster “does not use ‘dynamic pricing’ including algorithmic, differential or surge pricing and we are pleased that the CMA appears to have dropped this from their investigation”.
The CMA also notes that Ticketmaster has made some changes to its ticket sales process, but they say they do not consider the changes to be “sufficient to address” their concerns.
Hayley Fletcher, the Interim Senior Director of Consumer Protection added: “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. We now expect Ticketmaster to work with us to address these concerns so, in future, fans can make well-informed decisions when buying tickets.”
The CMA will have new consumer powers from April 6 which will enable them to decide when consumer law has been broken without needing to take a case to court. The new Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 will also allow them to fine firms that break consumer law by up to 10 per cent of their turnover.
Oasis have said that they “at no time had any awareness that dynamic pricing was going to be used” in the sale, claiming that “prior meetings between promoters, Ticketmaster and the band’s management resulted in a positive ticket sale strategy, which would be a fair experience for fans, including dynamic ticketing to help keep general ticket prices down as well as reduce touting, the execution of the plan failed to meet expectations.”
In anticipation of the tour, which kicks off on July 4 in Cardiff, sources close to the band told NME that the band’s line-up will include Andy Bell, Gem Archer, Paul “Bonehead” Arthurs and Joey Waronker, alongside Noel and Liam Gallagher.
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