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Oasis tickets controversy: ‘People say it was better in the old days. It really wasn’t’

Amid calls for Ticketmaster’s ‘dynamic pricing’ to be investigated, the company’s former MD says it is not a monopoly and will remain popular

A mural of Liam and Noel Gallagher created by artist Scott Wilcock aka Snow Graffiti, outside a pub in Whitefield, near Heaton Park, Manchester. Photograph: Paul Ellis/AFP via Getty Images
Conor Pope's picture
Conor Pope
Mon Sept 02 2024 - 18:18

There are many people who remain almost completely unaware of Live Nation despite its deep roots here.

The US entertainment giant owns Ticketmaster, the platform responsible for the sale of up to 90 per cent of tickets in Ireland along with MCD, the State’s largest concert promoter and the one bringing Oasis to Dublin next summer.

Live Nation also operates the 3Arena, the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre, the Gaiety and the Olympia and is behind Electric Picnic and Longitude. Through its subsidiaries it has strong relationships with the GAA, the IRFU and the FAI.

But it is not Live Nation or even MCD in the firing line over the latest ticketing controversy engulfing the nation, and not for the first time. Ticketmaster has become the touchstone for the anger of hundreds of thousands of music fans who missed out on tickets to see Oasis play in Dublin next August or who paid prices that would make a scalper blush.

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Concerns about the deployment of dynamic or “in-demand” pricing on the platform which caused ticket prices to jump sharply over the course of Saturday, with some standing tickets climbing by hundreds of euro over the course of the frantic sale, have mounted, with the Tánaiste, Micheál Martin, describing the prices as “quite shocking”.

“We have the competition and consumer authority and I think there is a role there for it, which is the body designated to do these things, to investigate this.”

On Sunday the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC) played down the prospect of any investigation and said that, under consumer law in Ireland, people only have to be “clearly informed of the full price of a product, including fees, before they buy”.

However, on Monday evening an updated statement said the CCPC believed there were “legitimate concerns around the consumer experiences” trying to buy tickets and it was “actively reviewing the situation and we will consider all options to ensure consumer protection law is followed”.

The British government plans to investigate, with its minister for culture Lisa Nandy saying it was “depressing to see vastly inflated prices” on sites operated by authorised retailers.

The review will look at issues around the transparency and use of dynamic pricing. “Working with artists, industry and fans, we can create a fairer system that ends the scourge of touts, rip-off resales and ensures tickets at fair prices,” she said.

[ Oasis tickets controversy: Is ‘dynamic pricing’ any better than touting? ]

Calls for an investigation into Ticketmaster here are not new; while the responsibility for pricing rests with MCD and Oasis, Ticketmaster is a target because it is a brand we love to hate and has been since it first arrived in the mid-1990s.

Tommy Higgins was its managing director then and ran its European operation. While he stresses he is not a spokesman for the company, he is phlegmatic about the latest controversy and points out that Ticketmaster sells millions of tickets for shows in Ireland every year and there are “only a handful, maybe six shows a year that caused consternation. Nobody ever thinks of the happy 160,000 people who bought tickets for Oasis and are keeping schtum.”

He says Ticketmaster is not a monopoly and will remain popular because “they are the best ticketing company in the world for scale. You have to think about the risk a promoter takes when they take on a show. A promoter might only have a 5 per cent margin, remember, and takes a €15 million risk so has to be absolutely sure there’s a company that can handle the sales.”

It was different in his early days. He sold £6.50 tickets to 700 people who went to see Oasis in the Tivoli in 1994 and recalls how a couple of years later there were thousands of people on Grafton Street queuing for tickets to see the band in the old Point Depot. “People say it was better in the old days. It really wasn’t. At least now I can sit in my bed on my computer queuing for tickets,” he said.