So many peoples dreams were not made of strawberry lemonade...

[Demonhunter]

Not really an AIBU as I'm not the unreasonable one.

I didn't even try and get Oasis tickets yesterday, but I'm annoyed for those (including friends) who had an appalling experience with ticketmaster. It seems it was pre planned to kick people off, accuse of being bots when only one device being used etc.

What concerns me is the dynamic pricing. I know they've been subtly doing it for a long time, but if they can so publicly expose themselves to doing this with such a sought after tour, and get away with it, is this possibly the beginning of the end for big band tours?

Could the introduction of a new ticket system be possible do you think?

I’m a Labour voter and welcome any government initiative to financially support culture… but the minister, Lisa Nandy doesn’t seem to have music in her priorities, which would be a serious dereliction of duty
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/culture-secretary-declares-culture-media-and-sport-sectors-crucial-to-national-growth-mission

Ironically I wonder if this is because of how the media hyping up Cool Britannia made the 90s Blair government quickly look not that cool?

The government should have pressure put on them to support music just as much as any other of these other key areas, which includes not leaving access to live gigs solely to the market, because is at a virtual monopoly for ticket selling by the sounds of it. That’s anti-growth.

😂😂😂

It seems to me that Ticketmaster can't cope with any of these big sales. Every single tine it crashes / boots people out like its their first rodeo every single time.

I got 4 tickets, it was a long time of queuing and being kicked out of Ticketmaster but we managed to get 4 standing at the face value price which we wanted.

We dated in line for Ticketmaster too as we were nearly at the front to see the price, they were extortionate, we were super lucky. We also got Taylor Swift tickets for her Era's tour for £110 each which was very good compared to what some tickets went up to. We were standing and so close to the front we could almost touch here whereas people paid hundreds for seated tickets which a terrible view. It's very hit and miss!

this is two middle aged men with dodgy hair not the second coming

best post of the day! 🤣

I think that’s the website working in exactly the way TM want it to work tbh.

Same thing happened when DD was getting tickets for Dua Lipa recently. Standing tickets for around £155 in basket, websites ‘crashes’ and standing tickets hiked to around £358 when she gets back to the process again. I don’t think it’s a ‘crash’ at all, I think it’s a reset.

But most people my age don't really want to go out to see live bands that often. It's legacy bands who can charge silly money because their middle aged audience can afford it, and the tours are rare and exciting enough to be 'events' worth paying extra for. Surely after all these threads you must know that a bunch of fifty year olds didn't just decide 'let's pay shit tons of money to see some really exciting, innovative live music'. They thought bloody hell it's Oasis, I want to be there.

Most nights I want to watch the news, do my sudoku then shuffle off to bed. The night time economy is going to have to do without me unless something that speaks to my soul is happening.

Hey, that hairstyle was all the rage 30 years ago with the Mad Fer It lads!

Must admit, a couple of my oldest friends who had that hair in the 90s, now have a distinct lack of it and I wondered if I'll see some pics next year of syrups on the go 😂

She did put on tiered pricing though with hugely over inflated package deals for some seats, which isn't conceptually a world away from dynamic pricing

But it is Half the world away though (see what I did there) when you know the set price in advance, even if it is inflated. You can have a think about it and decide if it’s within your budget before you’re thrust in to a split second decision when faced with finally getting your hands on tickets but that are now more than 100% more expensive than you were expecting.

So is it the case that

tiered pricing won’t change while people are in the online queue

dynamic pricing will change while people are in the queue and you could waste three hours and then find it’s quadrupled in price?

this is two middle aged men with dodgy hair not the second coming

Quite. That was The Stone Roses.

The dynamic pricing thing just feels like the sort of high pressure sales tactic that would lead to a double glazing salesman being featured on Watchdog.

You've made a decision that you'll pay £150; to be put on the spot while worrying you'll miss out isn't fair.

Surely strawberry lemonade is strawberryade?

It's high pressure sales tactics - you have something people are already emotionally invested in wanting, you ramp up that emotional investment by making them invest more into the process of getting tickets (ie by waiting for hours and having to rejoin the queue). By the time they get to the purchase, they are so invested they'll pay (much) more than they planned.

The Government should stop dynamic pricing like this. Ie prices can't change more than once a day and have to be advertised more than 24 hours ahead of going on sale at that price.

Supply and demand, but with transparency.

TM should also not be allowed to have a monopoly.

@cranford
(Wrong tag ignore)
Yes, it's not a great time for venues, but I still think one needs to distinguish between accessing 'live music' and megastars. Mixed feelings for me

I've been to plenty of the former in this past year, got tickets for more gigs. Musicians like Eric Nam and London Grammar, also new bands like Exploring Birdsong.

I completely avoid Taylor Swift, Sabrina Carpenter and the like.

The Mega Artists IMO cost so much in terms of marketing, production value of their gigs etc that they simply have to pack out big arenas. But also, from a H&S perspective everything involves so much effort.

Even Glastonbury was formed to rebel against the establishment, just people listening to music in a field. It's now a massively commercial, expensive behemoth. Same with all the other big festivals.

I guess all the people employed make money. But although I'd like to go, not worth spending all that effort in getting tickets not to mention the cost itself.

No thanks.

We the people need to stop paying these ridiculous costs

I know...the rest of us were rolling our eyes then

How many of you have Spotify (or similar)
How many buy shirts at primark, HMV, EMP rather than official website?
How many have ever crowd funded a band?

It needs regular people to boycott it but if they sold all the tickets at the high prices, they’ve already won, and why wouldn’t they keep doing it?!

No to all three.

Not sure of the point of this question.

I sad something similar upthread, if they can’t outlaw dynamic pricing then at least warn in advance that ‘prices may rise by’ [a set percentage] during the sale.
So you can make an informed decision whether to join/stay in the queue.

Yes ticket suppliers could do more but the fans are also at fault, if the fans didn't feed the touts there would be no market. It's a choice to play stupid prices for tickets same as food inside events, if noone bought it they wouldn't charge it.

You make you choices you pay the prices.

I was in the queue for the waiting room very early on feeling confident while friends couldn't even get into the site. At the 10 min mark it kicked me out. Then after about 5 mins of trying to get back in I was suspended for being a bot. I sat in a queue until 1pm when I was added to the waiting room. Stayed there for hours. Tickets sold out. Absolute sham.

I have Apple Music, I buy band merch directly online all the time (in fact I’d fall off my chair if Primark made any merch for a band I’d buy merch for), if a band I like releases a new album I buy a physical copy even though I’ll likely never use it (because Apple Music) and I go to live music events multiple times a month.

And I still loathe dynamic pricing, particularly as the bands I see who are doing music to put food on the table in a lot of cases will never be “in demand” enough to warrant dynamic pricing, and those that are already have millions so don’t really need the extra - it’s just exploitative. Why not just own it and set the price at £500 a ticket and reduce later if they don’t sell 🤷🏻‍♀️

There has got to be a better way with a lottery system or something.
There should be legislation and warnings.

It wasn’t quite like that though.. plenty people went to get TS tickets at £100, then when they got to the front only £500 bundle tickets were available, and they then bought them even though they were out of initial budget as they got caught up in the same hype you’re referring to!

(and I say this as someone who bought TS tickets and not Oasis ones)