After an uproar over its handling of tickets for Oasis’s reunion tour, Ticketmaster U.K. has agreed to make changes to its ticket-selling process, Britain’s Competition and Markets Authority said Thursday.
The changes include alerting consumers at least 24 hours in advance if tiered pricing is being used, and giving more accurate information about ticket prices while buyers are in online queues.
Many fans wound up angry last September when the first batch of tickets to Oasis’s long-anticipated reunion tour went on sale. After enduring long online queues, some were faced with tickets that cost more than double the price that had been advertised — and little time to decide whether to buy them.
This gave rise to suspicion that Ticketmaster was using dynamic pricing, a method in which ticket prices rise automatically when there is a lot of demand.
Even Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Britain had something to say about the mess in Parliament this month. “It is depressing to hear of price hikes,” he said.
The outrage led the C.M.A. to open an investigation. While it did not find that dynamic pricing had been used, the authority said Thursday that Ticketmaster had not told fans in online queues that tickets were being sold at two different prices, and that once the cheaper tickets sold out they would be required to pay more.
It also found that Ticketmaster sold tickets with a “platinum” designation for far more than “standard” tickets — some nearly 2.5 times as much — but in similar locations, without adequately explaining that the platinum tickets offered no extra benefit.
According to Thursday’s announcement, Ticketmaster has agreed to tell fans at least one day before a sale begins if multiple prices are being used for the same ticket type, with more expensive tickets being released when the less expensive ones sell out.
It also agreed to offer more information on the range of prices when ticket buyers first log on, and to alert fans when cheaper tickets sell out. Ticketmaster also will “ensure that tickets are described accurately and do not give the impression that one ticket is better than another when that is not the case,” the authority said in a statement.
“The changes we’ve secured will give fans more information about prices and clear descriptions of exactly what they are getting for their money,” said Sarah Cardell, the authority’s chief executive. “If Ticketmaster fails to deliver on these changes, we won’t hesitate to take further action.”
Ticketmaster said in a statement: “We welcome the C.M.A.’s confirmation there was no dynamic pricing, no unfair practices and that we did not breach consumer law. To further improve the customer experience, we’ve voluntarily committed to clearer communication about ticket prices in queues.”
It added, “We encourage the C.M.A. to hold the entire industry to these same standards.”
Victor Mather, who has been a reporter and editor at The Times for 25 years, covers sports and breaking news.
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