A Viagogo boss has branded the UK’s ticket selling system “broken” after Oasis fans were angered to find tickets to the Britpop band’s 2025 reunion tour being sold and resold at massively inflated prices.
Hundreds of thousands of fans who waited in online queues for hours over the weekend were shocked to find ticket prices had skyrocketed by the time they were finally given access to buy them, due to ‘dynamic pricing’.
Some saw standard tickets more than double from £148 to £355 on official site Ticketmaster due to intense demand, leading to complaints that working class fans had been “thrown under the bus”.
Other fans were angered to see tickets were immediately relisted on reselling sites such as Viagogo, some for more than £5,000 each.
Matt Drew, who oversees business development at Viagogo, said ticket sales on Saturday “descended into chaos”.
Speaking to Sky’s Daily podcast, he said: "It's clearly broken, and bands and consumers are the ones that are losing out.
"Asking fans in the first place to buy tickets so far in advance, you're putting fans in massive queues, which are pre-queues to other queues, having them be kicked out of these services, having the price triple on them at the point of checkout - these are scenarios that just illustrate what a mess this is.
"That's the reason why we believe this whole system needs a full review.
“It needs to be looked at from top to bottom and redesigned in a way that supports consumers.”
He said there should be “much greater transparency, much greater levels of competition”.
"These exclusive points of sales are almost unique to this industry, and it's clear that they don't work,” he added. “They cause crashes, they cause the ability for people to squeeze on price to eye-watering levels."
Sir Keir Starmer has vowed the government will get a “grip” on the issue of surge pricing, after hundreds of Oasis fans complained about the inflated ticket prices.
Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy has pledged to investigate the use of dynamic pricing in a forthcoming Government review of the secondary gig sales market.
Oasis announced last week it was reforming after 15 years and performing a string of gigs across the UK and Ireland next year, including four nights at Wembley Stadium.
But the band was forced to issue a second warning about relisted tickets on Saturday morning as millions scrambled to snap up general sale tickets.
The band wrote on X: “Please note, Oasis Live ‘25 tickets can only be resold at face value via @TicketmasterUK and @Twickets!
“Tickets appearing on other secondary ticketing sites are either counterfeit or will be cancelled by the promoters.”
It came after a similar warning to fans on Friday night, when tickets went on pre-sale.
Cris Miller, Viagogo global managing director, defended his website on Saturday, saying “resale is legal in the UK and fans are always protected by our guarantee that they will receive their tickets in time for the event or their money back”.
“In the case of Oasis – a highly anticipated event – we saw the primary sites struggling to manage demand even before the on-sale, and site crashes,” he said.
“We know fans are frustrated with the process and we know there is a better way. We continue to support industry collaboration to ensure the entire ticketing market works for fans and the live entertainment industry.”
Chief executive of the Society of Ticket Agents and Retailers, Jonathan Brown, said that fans need to “open their eyes and protect themselves”.
He added: “It’s a dreadful combination, I suppose, you’ve got that high level of emotion, a high level of excitement about Oasis reforming, and a limited supply of tickets – and that’s going to lead to problems, it’s going to lead to people trying to scam people.”
