Maximum ticket price proposal tabled in Parliament after Oasis backlash
Fans would be guaranteed to know the maximum ticket price at the beginning of the buying process under a proposed law tabled following the Oasis backlash.
The Sale of Tickets (Sporting and Cultural Events) Bill has been put forward in the House of Commons after “dynamic pricing” left some Oasis fans paying more than they expected to secure tickets for the band’s reunion gigs.
Labour MP Rupa Huq said she wants the law changed to improve transparency on pricing and prevent fans being ripped off.
Oasis’s 2025 UK and Ireland tour has sold out although concerns were raised after some standard tickets more than doubled in price from £148 to £355.
Dynamic pricing
The Britpop group said they were unaware that dynamic pricing was going to be used while Ticketmaster stated that “all ticket prices are set by the tour”.
The Government and the UK’s competition watchdog have pledged to look into the practice.
Ms Huq, the MP for Ealing Central and Acton, told the PA news agency: “As a lifelong music fan, I, like many of the nation, was scandalised to see the recent situation where people were queuing up for the best part of a day to get Oasis tickets.
“And the pressure is immense when you’re refreshing for six hours to find yourself then finally at the top of the queue, you feel you have to go for it, but by then the ticket is five times the price of what you thought it was when advertised.
“From a consumer protection point of view, our constituents would like some certainty and so this Bill would enshrine in statute a maximum price.
“It’s a sort of sale of goods thing, that the price you can see when you start the process is the price you pay.
“It could be a maximum because dynamic ticket pricing could go down as well as up.”
‘Predictability’
Ms Huq, who said she watched Oasis live in the 1990s, added: “There should be some certainty, some predictability, particularly as we’re in a cost-of-living crisis.
“But even irrespective of that there needs to be some fairness in the process because it feels as if the consumer balance is wrong and the ticket merchants can literally double it, triple it, think of a number, infinity and beyond.”
Ms Huq is currently developing the text for the Bill, adding: “Some of the leading pressure groups and industry bodies think it’s high time that this happened because fans just shouldn’t be ripped off.”
She added: “This won’t outlaw dynamic pricing, it’s just introducing transparency and certainty because there is a place for the market as well.”
Ms Huq’s Bill has attracted support from MPs from different parties and it could be considered further in the House of Commons on December 6.
Without support from the Government, it is unlikely to progress in its current form.
Ministers have said the Government will launch a consultation on the secondary ticket market in the autumn.
They have also acknowledged that dynamic pricing can be beneficial when it provides cheaper early bird tickets.
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Tackle the ticket fees as well. When the touts that game the system try to buy many tickets, and they will, re sale must be face value and re sale must be through the original site and tout sites made illegal. Put all the support to the fans and not the ticketing sites, and remove the countdown clocks, they pressure you for a reason.
Make sure Chope and his mates are off during the bill. He will kill it.
I’m not sure a maximum fee would be the answer. Look what happened with student fees. They were set at a maximum of £9k and then very quickly that became the default figure for every course.