Oasis fans left tortured by the ticket sale mayhem for the band’s 2025 reunion tour could soon see an end to ‘dynamic pricing.’
Thousands of fans rushed to ticketing sites when the Gallagher brothers announced their tour dates, leading to complaints about inflated ticket prices.
But ticket sales have now come under scrutiny after some fans reported paying more than they expected.
Now Sale of Tickets (Sporting and Cultural Events) Bill has been put forward in the House of Commons following the dynamic pricing scandal.
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
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.’
Both the UK competition watchdog and the government have vowed to look into the practice.
Ms Huq, the MP for Ealing Central and Acton, said: ‘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.’
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.
It 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.
It comes after Prime Minister Keir Starmer weighed in on the Oasis ticket sale debacle, describing it as ‘unfair’ as prices ‘start going through the roof.’
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