Dynamic pricing: two words that now send shivers down the spines of millions of music fans. It’s a pricing method that adjusts costs according to real-time demand and has been common in industries such as tourism and air travel for some time now. But it really came back into the spotlight when Oasis announced their huge reunion tour.
Loads of Oasis fans sat in an online queue for hours in August, only to be faced with tickets that cost up to two and a half times more than their original price. Tickets originally worth £148 shot up to £355 and naturally, people got mad. But now the government could enforce a law to protect gig-goers from being ripped off by dynamic pricing.
The Sale of Tickets (Sporting and Cultural Events) Bill has been put forward to the House of Commons to improve transparency within ticket sales. Proposed by Labour MP Rupa Huq, it won’t outlaw dynamic pricing but it will give fans a guaranteed max price that they can expect to pay.
Rupa Huq, a Labour MP, told the PA news agency: ‘As a lifelong music fan, I, like many of the nation, was scandalised to see the recent situation where people were queuing up for the best part of a day to get Oasis tickets.
‘And the pressure is immense when you’re refreshing for six hours to find yourself then finally at the top of the queue, you feel you have to go for it, but by then the ticket is five times the price of what you thought it was when advertised.’
She added: ‘There should be some certainty, some predictability, particularly as we’re in a cost-of-living crisis’.
It should be noted that dynamic pricing can be beneficial – it sometimes results in cheaper early bird tickets, too. Still, the bill has gathered support from MPs across different parties and could be given further consideration in the House of Commons on December 6.
