Oasis tickets dynamic pricing debacle was a sad day for British music - Jayne Dowle

With the threat of Rachel Reeves’ punishing autumn budget hanging over him, surely he’s got more pressing fiscal things to worry about than music fans being ripped off.

After all, we’ve been getting fleeced since way before Sir Keir was a law student in Leeds back in the 1980s, when he was reportedly a big fan of The Smiths, Orange Juice and Aztec Camera.

Inevitably, the PM’s vow to “grip this and make sure that tickets [for concerts and other live events] are available at a price that people can actually afford” has brought accusations that he's scoring cheap populist points.

It’s debatable what he can do, and he certainly will face fierce opposition from the music industry. There’s no doubt that since the Covid pandemic ravaged live music, performers, promoters, support crews and venues have been struggling to recoup immeasurable losses.

However, as Sylvia Rook, lead officer for fair trading at the Chartered Trading Standards Institute (CTSI), says: "Whilst dynamic pricing is an accepted practice for holidays, flights and taxis, the difference here is that consumers are informed of the price before they decide to make a purchase. In this case, the public were given a price for tickets and were not informed until they finally got to the front of the queue that the price had increased.”

It is especially galling that is happening at what could have been a rare feel-good moment for the nation. Whilst we can’t turn back the clock to 1997, when Tony Blair’s own Labour government rode to power on a wave of Britpop fever, and Noel Gallager was famously invited to a Downing Street party, we can at least be proud that our music industry is the envy of the world. Until now.

This cynical, nasty move puts going to a hugely-popular gig beyond the reach of millions. If Oasis can get away with it, so will other bands. A sad day for British music.

If that sounds like a first world problem – with the rejoinder that no-one is forcing anyone to buy a ticket to see any band or live event – then perhaps we should look deeper.

Consumers feel completely powerless in the face of such a situation. This adds weight onto the already crushing burden of daily anxiety many people struggle with as they juggle the cost of living.

I couldn’t help but wonder how many of those who ended up paying massively over the odds for a ticket busted their credit card limit or went into overdraft. They’ll be paying the price for that for months, if not years.

As Sylvia Rook says: “In this case many consumers would not have joined the queue had they known that the price would have increased by the time they were able to purchase, and many fans could not afford the increased price.”

I’m a bit younger than the Prime Minister, but still an indie kid at heart too. I’ve seen Oasis a few times, including at Knebworth in 1996, when I was glad, as a freeloading music journalist back then, I hadn’t had to part with money to be trampled by the crowd of aggressive lads, showered with questionable liquids and stranded at Stevenage train station at midnight when they all decided to fight each other.

For me, seeing Oasis now would have been less about enjoying the music, more about bearing witness to a moment in history.

So last Saturday morning, after not being selected for a magic code in the pre-sale ballot, I woke at 6.30am and logged onto ticketing agencies Ticketmaster on my laptop and See Tickets on my phone. My aim? Four standing tickets to see the band in Edinburgh, in August next year.

My friend was doing the same, to maximise our chances. We’d already secured accommodation so we could make a weekend of it, for a reasonable price – no dynamic pricing there.

Almost everyone’s got an Oasis ticketing story to tell, so I won’t bore you with many details, except the website crashes, the frozen phone screen, the 176,000 people in front of me in the Ticketmaster queue by 10am, the bit where my laptop inexplicably decided to do an update. At this point, I lost my place in the queue entirely and gave up.