Oasis fans' fury sparks UK govt review of dynamic pricing

  • 2 weeks ago

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00:00It's the moment that Oasis fans have only dreamed of, a chance to see the iconic British
00:11band reunited and play live for the first time in 16 years.
00:15But many fans virtually queuing for hours on end for a ticket were met with a nasty
00:19surprise with many confronted with double or triple the initially advertised price.
00:24I think the price is absolutely ridiculous, like 300 for something and I think it should
00:30be at least 100.
00:33I think the whole Ticketmaster pricing scheme is reprehensible.
00:38I think it discourages true fans from accessing what they really want to see and it creates
00:43a whole lot of competition that doesn't need to be there.
00:46Anger at missing out on tickets is now being directed at the platform Ticketmaster for
00:50their Dynamic Pricing, a strategy in which businesses push up prices at times of high
00:55demand.
00:56What was happening was basically the algorithm was looking to balance supply and demand.
01:00So as demand was increasing, demand was high, it tries to find that price that really balances
01:05supply and demand, that sort of clears the market.
01:07And that's what it did.
01:08So the sort of prices went up when demand was high.
01:11The outrage is also due to the lack of transparency, as many fans had no idea that a dynamic pricing
01:17model was in use.
01:18Following the backlash, the government says it will consider an overhaul of the system.
01:23We think there's clearly a problem there, and so we'll be consulting over the autumn
01:27about the changes that are needed to enable fans to have access to, whether it's gigs
01:32or live events, at a fair price and in a fair way.
01:35More than a million tickets went on sale Saturday morning, with the prices starting at around
01:3988 euros.
01:41But the increase in demand has seen some resale sites selling them for more than 9,000.

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