Britain’s Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy has condemned the dynamic pricing applied to Oasis UK reunion tour tickets in her first address to the UK music industry.
The MP first called for a review into “dynamic pricing” and secondary ticket sites in September, after tickets for Oasis’s highly anticipated reunion tour went on sale in the UK and Ireland. Some fans were disappointed to find huge price increases due to Ticketmaster’s dynamic pricing policy upon accessing ticket pages.
The ticketing platform’s “surge pricing” scheme, introduced in 2022, increases ticket prices based on demand. Ticketmaster have clarified on their website previously that tickets that are “market-priced” and “may increase or decrease at any time, based on demand. This is similar to how airline tickets and hotel rooms are sold.”
After facing backlash from fans, Oasis responded with a statement which read: “Oasis leave decisions on ticketing and pricing entirely to their promoters and management, and at no time had any awareness that dynamic pricing was going to be used.”
The band later confirmed that a dynamic pricing structure would not be applied to their North American reunion tour dates.
While speaking at Beyond The Music, a music industry conference and music festival in Manchester on Friday (October 11), Nandy once again condemned the policy and promised to address the issue of “price transparency” in live music.
“We’ve announced a consultation we are launching this autumn,” she said in her first address to the music industry. “For us, this isn’t a question of whether we intervene, it’s how we intervene.
“Particularly, the consultation will look at the issue of resales which are inflating prices beyond a rate at which most people can afford in many instances. It’s been going on for far too long. The commitment is we are going to sort this out. It’s not a question of whether but how.”
Oasis previously announced a partnership with resale platform Twickets where fans can buy unwanted tickets for no more than face value (plus booking fees).
Nandy went on to highlight Oasis specifically and the issue of fans getting to the front of long ticket queues only to find they can’t afford the newly inflated prices, saying: “We don’t want to see a repeat of that, so we are looking at what we can do to improve transparency and protect against that.”
“Creating an ecosystem that can nurture talent, from quality music education, to grassroots venues where you hone your skills and a government that walks alongside you to create an environment that opens up opportunities”
Culture Secretary @lisanandy speaking @gobeyondmcr today pic.twitter.com/qMs4Zfyipy
— Department for Culture, Media and Sport (@DCMS) October 11, 2024
Following the UK and Ireland sale controversy, the issue was brought to the Advertising Standards Agency and the European Commission, with a separate call for an investigation brought by the UK government.
Experts also suggested that not warning Oasis fans of the dynamic pricing may breach consumer law.
Nandy also used the speech to address the challenges facing grassroots music venues, saying the government are “looking at how we can bring community buildings back into use, owned by the community through reforms to the Community Right to Buy.”
The topic of community ownership has been gaining momentum in recent years, with the success of Music Venue Trust’s #OwnOurVenues scheme. The scheme was first revealed in May 2022 and announced as a success a year later, after £2.3million was raised by the charity through a series of donations and investments.
Dubbed “The National Trust, but for venues”, and backed by the likes of Ed Sheeran, it sees venues sign a “cultural lease” with Music Venue Properties (MVP) that guarantees that, as long as they operate as a space for grassroots live music for their local community, they can enjoy use of the building.
So far, three venues have been protected by the scheme. The Snug in Atherton was the first to be saved and protected by the scheme in October last year, followed by Preston’s The Ferret in May and The Bunkhouse, a grassroots music venue in Swansea, in September.
It comes at a time of crisis for small music venues in the UK. Earlier this year, Music Venue Trust delivered their full report into the state of the sector for 2023, showing the “disaster” facing live music with venues closing at a rate of around two per week.
Presenting their findings at Westminster, the charity also echoed their calls for a £1 levy on tickets for gigs at arena size and above and for major labels to pay back into the grassroots scene, arguing that “the big companies are now going to have to answer for this”.
Last year, following the closure of legendary Bath music venue Moles, MVT CEO Mark Davyd told NME that the live music industry was “interested in making money but not in the ecosystem.”
In other news, earlier this month Coldplay announced that 10 per cent of their proceeds from their upcoming stadium shows in London and Hull would be given to Music Venue Trust, in a bid to help support grassroots venues around the country. Following the news, fans reacted positively on social media, with one saying “This is the start of something big”.