Ticketmaster's pricing for Oasis tickets is under investigation in the U.K.
CTV
The U.K.'s competition watchdog has launched an investigation into the way tickets were sold for next year's reunion concerts from iconic 1990s Britpop band Oasis.
The U.K.'s competition watchdog has launched an investigation into the way tickets were sold for next year's reunion concerts from iconic 1990s Britpop band Oasis.
In a statement Thursday, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said its investigation into Live Nation Entertainment's unit Ticketmaster will look specifically at “dynamic pricing," whereby prices can vary rapidly in light of changing market conditions.
It is a pricing strategy that is used in flight sales and home food deliveries, where demand levels fluctuate.
Many Oasis fans who queued online at the Ticketmaster site for hours Saturday complained that they ended up paying more than double the face value of the ticket as a result of dynamic pricing, with standard tickets often sold for 355 pounds (US$470) as compared to the expected 148 (US$195).
Critics said it was deceptive and inappropriate to use dynamic pricing for the Oasis concerts given that it was known from the start that there would be sky-high demand for the more than 1 million tickets.
The watchdog said it would scrutinize whether Ticketmaster, the U.K.'s biggest seller of tickets, may have engaged in unfair commercial practices and whether it breached consumer protection law. It said it can implement enforcement if it sees evidence of possible breaches of the law.
The probe will look at whether consumers were told in a clear and timely way that the tickets could be subject to dynamic pricing, and whether they were put under pressure to buy tickets within a short period of time -- at a higher price than they understood they would have to pay.
