The UK’s Competition & Markets Authority has secured formal commitments from Live Nation’s Ticketmaster following its investigation into the sale of tickets for the Oasis reunion shows, which was prompted by lots of angry fans complaining that they ended up paying significantly more for tickets than they originally anticipated.
The ticketing company was widely criticised for not clearly communicating what fans should expect to pay. The CMA then revealed back in March that it had formal concerns about Ticketmaster’s poor consumer communications around the Oasis on-sale, subsequently revealing in June that it was considering legal action against the company.
The voluntary commitments – made by Ticketmaster without any admission of wrongdoing or liability – mean that won’t now happen.
Announcing those commitments from Ticketmaster, CMA boss Sarah Cardell says that “fans who spend their hard-earned money to see artists they love deserve to see clear, accurate information, upfront. We can’t ensure every fan gets a ticket for events as popular as the Oasis tour, but we can help ensure that next time an event like this comes along, fans have the information they need, when they need it”.
The changes to Ticketmaster practices secured by the regulator, she adds, “will give fans more information about prices and clear descriptions of exactly what they are getting for their money. If Ticketmaster fails to deliver on these changes, we won’t hesitate to take further action”.
When angry fans started to complain that they were paying over the odds from Oasis tickets, there was much talk about that being the result of Ticketmaster employing ‘dynamic pricing’. It was widely assumed that meant the ticketing company’s technology was automatically increasing the prices of tickets as demand surged, in a similar way to how airlines and hotels price flights and rooms.
In fact that wasn’t happening, even though Ticketmaster’s own terms and conditions at the time stated that it could “increase or decrease” the sale price of a ticket “based on demand”, adding that this process was “similar to how airline tickets and hotel rooms are sold and is commonly referred to as ‘dynamic pricing’”.
In its statement yesterday the CMA set out what was actually happening. “Tickets were being sold at two different prices”, which meant “prices jump as soon as the cheap tickets sold out”. But this wasn’t clearly communicated to fans, which the CMA subsequently identified as one of its key concerns.
One of Ticketmaster’s commitments seeks to address that concern. The ticketing firm says that, in the future, “fans will be told at least 24 hours before a sale begins if tiered pricing will be used and what that means”.
Another key concern of the CMA was that “Ticketmaster didn’t tell fans how much tickets would cost while they were waiting in long online queues”. As a result, the ticketing company says that, in the future, “fans will know the range of prices for tickets when they join a queue and be told when the cheaper tickets sell out through regular updates”.
The final key concern raised by the CMA was that “Ticketmaster sold some ‘platinum’ tickets at almost 2.5 times the price of ‘standard’ tickets – without sufficient explanation that these offered no additional benefits over some ‘standard’ tickets in the same areas of the venue”. On that, in the future, “fans will be clear on what they will get and if one ticket is better than another”.
Commenting on the company’s commitments, a spokesperson for Ticketmaster says, “we welcome the CMA’s confirmation there was no dynamic pricing, no unfair practices and that we did not breach consumer law” around the sale of Oasis tickets.
“To further improve the customer experience”, they add, “we’ve voluntarily committed to clearer communication about ticket prices in queues. This builds on our capped resale, strong bot protection and clear pricing displays — and we encourage the CMA to hold the entire industry to these same standards”.
Live Nation’s ticketing operations have come under considerable scrutiny on both sides of the Atlantic in recent years.
In the US the Department Of Justice sued Live Nation last year over allegations that the company dominating in concert promotions and venue management as well as ticketing had resulted in anti-competitive conduct. Then last week the FTC began legal proceedings accusing Ticketmaster of colluding with ticket touts.
Here in the UK, the government has undertaken its own review of the wider ticketing market and is expected to publish its conclusions soon, alongside proposals for ramped up regulation of secondary ticketing. Meanwhile, Live Nation and Ticketmaster execs have taken part in fiery sessions before Parliament’s Business And Trade Committee.
Live Nation’s premium ticketing packages have also separately caused controversy in the UK in the last year, though in that case not because they were misleadingly labelled ‘Platinum’ – these were packages that did actually offer extra benefits to the fan – but because of how they were treated when the live giant works out what it owes PRS on any one show.
The songwriter collecting society sued Live Nation last November claiming that the promoter had shown “disregard” for the requirements of the PRS live music licence when calculating royalties due on VIP packages at its concerts.
