Loyal fans paying the price for duo's dynamic ticket masterplan - Steve Cardownie

There has been a great deal of criticism of the ticket sales methodology that has been adopted for the forthcoming Oasis concerts at Murrayfield next year

I have seen David Bowie at Murrayfield, Rod Stewart at Parkhead (now Celtic Park), Prince at Meadowbank, Bruce Springsteen at Ibrox and The Rolling Stones at Murrayfield. If you throw in visits to the Castle Esplanade to see several performers it would hopefully demonstrate that I am hardly a novice either.

So, I have been keeping a close watch on the current furore surrounding the ticket sales methodology that has been adopted for the forthcoming Oasis concerts at Murrayfield next year and which was so aptly covered on this paper’s front page on Monday under the title “Complete Shambles”.

Of course, given the popularity of Oasis, you did not need a crystal ball to predict that all their prospective concerts would be sold out in a matter of a few hours, so, why, by all accounts, was it so poorly handled – at least from the public’s perspective.

One of the major complaints was over the practice of applying “dynamic pricing” to the cost of tickets. This process boosts the face value of a ticket in response to increased demand which saw some standard standing tickets advertised at £135 plus fees being re-labelled “in demand” and changed to £355 plus fees, incurring a great deal of anger and frustration among many fans of the group.

In response to the backlash, Ticketmaster stated that it does not set the prices, which are down to the “event organiser” who “has priced these tickets according to their market value”.

So, it would appear that the promoters as the “event organiser” are ultimately responsible and, according to the BBC: “The tour deal would also have involved the band’s booking agents and managers, who would have discussed it with the two reuniting brothers.”

The promoters are namely SJM Concerts, Live Nation (which owns Ticketmaster), MCD and DF.

Although it must be said that dynamic pricing is hardly a new concept having been applied by Live Nation in recent years in the USA, and also recently used in the UK by Harry Styles, Coldplay and Blackpink, this system discriminates against the very people these performers rely on and trades on fan loyalty and their desire to see their favourite artists perform live.

The rationale behind “dynamic pricing” for concerts might look reasonable at first glance but is it just a smokescreen designed to deflect criticism and “justify” the policy? By increasing prices on the official website to match what ticket-touts charge on secondary sites the theory is that the touts will be scared off and Ticketmaster (or whoever) and the artists can keep the extra profit.

So, whichever way that you look at it, the ticket buyer is screwed! However this defence of the system is hollow and is tantamount to admitting that the official promoter is stooping to the ticket-touts’ level by taking a leaf out of their odious handbook.

For many diehards these concerts will be the experience of a lifetime, and they will break the bank in order to secure a ticket. Others, who were willing to pay the original cost of a ticket, only to see it surge to an unaffordable price, will be sorely disappointed and have every right to feel betrayed.