Government forces Ticketmaster to make changes after Oasis dynamic pricing investigation

The government has forced Ticketmaster to implement some changes, following an investigation into the potential use of dynamic pricing in Oasis’s reunion tour sale.

READ MORE: Oasis live in Cardiff review: a supersonic reunion for a new generation

Debate around the cost of tickets reached a peak last year when Oasis announced their long-awaited ‘Live ‘25’ reunion tour dates, and fans scrambled to secure a place at the gigs.

While thousands were put in long queues on the website, and left unsuccessful in securing a place at the live shows, others did make it to the front of the line but found themselves priced out due to the suspected use of dynamic pricing. This is when the cost of tickets goes up or down without warning based on demand, leaving customers uncertain about the amount they will be expected to pay.

Controversy around the ticket debacle led to Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy calling for a review into dynamic pricing and secondary ticket sales. Prime Minister Keir Starmer called the price hikes “depressing”, and the European Commission confirmed that it would also be investigating the issue. 

At the time, Ticketmaster clarified that tickets that are “market-priced” may increase or decrease at any time, based on demand – “similar to how airline tickets and hotel rooms are sold” – and the CMA said that they would be scrutinising “whether the sale of Oasis tickets by Ticketmaster may have breached consumer protection law”.

Now, the CMA (Competition and Markets Authority), has secured a number of formal commitments from Ticketmaster to ensure there is more transparency with fans looking to buy tickets going forward.

These changes, known as undertakings, will help make it clear to fans exactly how much they will be shelling out when getting tickets to live concerts, and better outline what they will get for their money.

The crowd at the first stop of the Oasis Live 25 reunion tour in Cardiff, Wales on July 4, 2025. Credit: Andy Ford for NME

There were two areas of concern located when investigating the Oasis sale. One of these was how Ticketmaster did not tell fans in the queues that standing tickets were being sold at two different prices (with prices set to jump as soon as the cheap tickets sold out).

The other was how the company sold some ‘platinum’ tickets at nearly two-and-a-half times the price of ‘standard’ tickets, but didn’t explain that these offered no additional benefits over some ‘standard’ tickets in the same areas.

Going forward, Ticketmaster is being made to tell fans 24 hours in advance if a tiered pricing system is being used – allowing them to know if there are multiple prices for the same type of tickets.

It is also being pressured to provide more information about ticket prices during online queues, so fans know more about what they may be asked to pay, and it is being made not to use any misleading ticket labels (where one ticket appears to have more benefits than another, when this is not the case).

Ticketmaster will be regularly reporting to the CMA on how it has implemented the undertakings over the next two years. Failure to implement these new measures could result in enforcement action.

“Fans who spend their hard-earned money to see artists they love deserve to see clear, accurate information, upfront,” said Sarah Cardell, Chief Executive of the Competition and Markets Authority. “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 we’ve secured 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.”

It is worth noting that these undertakings have been provided to the CMA “voluntarily and without any admission of wrongdoing or liability”. Already, Ticketmaster has stopped using ‘platinum’ labels in the UK.

The CMA also shared that, while many were under the impression that dynamic pricing was used in the Oasis ticket sale (which sees prices adjusted in real time based on demand), the investigation has not found any evidence of this.

Visit here for more information on the investigation. NME has reached out to Ticketmaster for a statement regarding the CMA findings.

Efforts to secure more fairness around live music are also seen as the government started cracking down on high prices and touts at the start of the year, announcing that there would be a price cap on how much touts can resell tickets for.

Speaking to NME, the Minister of State for Data Protection and Telecoms Sir Chris Bryant MP said that this price cap wasn’t up for debate – but it was “now just a matter of how the government takes action”.

“The key thing here is transparency and fairness in the system. It’s a perfectly good argument that if you have this heightened anxiety deliberately created by the system, then you see your ticket prices going up by hundreds – is that a fair system? We’re asking people what we should do about that,” he shared.

As for ticket prices in the US, it was recently confirmed that US regulators are suing Ticketmaster and its parent company, Live Nation, over alleged “illegal” tactics when reselling tickets.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), along with seven states, alleged that the entertainment giant coordinated with brokers to purchase gig tickets and sell them at a “substantial” markup. This, they alleged, violated consumer protection law and led to the companies profiting from large resale fees.

Ticketmaster and Live Nation have not yet responded to the FTC’s allegations, but earlier this year, Andrew Parsons – the Managing Director at Ticketmaster UK – told MPs he believed that tickets were “very fairly priced”.

Last year, the US Department of Justice filed an antitrust lawsuit against Live Nation over its alleged behaviour of illegally maintaining a monopoly in the live music industry. A judge has since rejected Live Nation’s bid to dismiss the antitrust allegations, which the company has called “absurd”.

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