www.billboard.com: Ticketmaster will provide fans with advance information around ticket prices, it was announced Thursday (Sept. 25) following a lengthy investigation by the U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). The investigation was sparked by the Oasis reunion tour ticket sale which left fans with complaints over the sale process.
4 comments:
It’s great that governmental agencies are finally giving TicketMaster the scrutiny it deserves. Last week, there was an article that TicketMaster was sued by the Department of Justice in the United States, and now it seems to be under intense scrutiny and specific rules in the UK. The amount of incidents in the last few years concerning TicketMaster’s sales practices and services has been astonishing, and it’s about time that some action has been taken. On top of scalping and unfair or unclear pricing, I know that technical failures have also been a problem in TicketMaster’s past. I don’t know how well TicketMaster will truly be able to change, though. It seems to me that the company is already ‘set up’ for unfair pricing, and simply playing by the rules might be too big of a change for the company to handle. In other words, it seems a bit improbable that a company with such a past would be able to change for the better in this way.
Gonna start off by saying I'm not a big oasis fan. I'm a blur girl by heart, forever and always. I think the Gallagher brothers are slimy, decrepit people. If I'm being truly honest. My personal thoughts aside, I think the only real reason they decided to come back together for a tour is because they realized how much money they could make. So when I heard there was a scandal with their ticket sales, I was far from surprised. When I heard there was a scandal with Ticketmaster, I was like oh wow. The fork is found within the kitchen. I hate Ticketmaster. They have scammed me from 300 worth of tickets that I never got the refund for when reselling them. I'm glad they are finally being held accountable. Finally, I think their lying monopoly of a company and CEO deserve to be locked up for the amount of money they have taken from people.
I commented on the article about Ticketmaster being sued by the FTC and this feels like a faster step in the right direction. Unfortunately, this first step was taken by the UK and not by the US. This is still a very small step as they only agreed to telling fans 24 hours in advance. I appreciate that they are being put in place and will have to do reports to the CMA to ensure they are adhering to the new compliance. It says that the CMA found no wrong doing, but the fact that Ticketmaster has agreed to new compliance once again insinuates that they know they were on the verge of doing something very wrong. The fact that Ticketmaster is calling for the CMA to hold the entire industry to the same standards feels wild because no one has been a larger offender of wild ticket sale practices.
As a theatre student at CMU who’s always been attuned to questions of fairness, access, and audience experience, reading that Billboard article about Ticketmaster responding to the Oasis ticket pricing investigation felt like yet another reminder that the systems around art are as important as the art itself. The article shows that the U.K.’s watchdog forced Ticketmaster to agree to new rules for pricing transparency—things like telling fans ahead of time if there will be tiered pricing, clarifying how many price levels exist, and making it clear as you’re waiting in line what you might have to pay. All of that feels like a push to return some control to the audience. What’s frustrating is how little power fans have when they’re up against giants like Ticketmaster and Live Nation, who can build structures that obscure what’s really happening. In theatrical terms, it’s like designing a show where half the stage is hidden from the audience and they’re told nothing about how it’s being operated. If these reforms actually hold, they could shift the balance a little bit toward transparency and trust—something theatre, of all arts, depends on.
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