FEATURE:
Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)
IN THIS PHOTO: Green Day/PHOTO CREDIT: Samuel Bayer
Why Dynamic Pricing Ticketing Needs to End
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IT did not start with Oasis…
IN THIS PHOTO: Liam and Noel Gallagher of Oasis
though dynamic pricing and these ridiculously inflated ticket costs for fans was definitely brought to the forefront when they recently announced 2025 reunion gigs. So many people desperately wanting to see the band but, due to demand, only these very expensive tickets left. It did cause understandable fury and disgust from fans. Like Oasis were cashing in. There is debate as to whether this pricing scheme and model makes it harder for scalpers to sell tickets at an inflated cost. However, if that is the case, then a lot more needs to be done to ensure that all fans can get access to affordable tickets. If you do not know about dynamic pricing, this article from The Guardian explains more:
“Oasis fans spent many frustrating hours of the weekend locked in a desperate race to secure tickets for the Mancunian band’s long-awaited reunion tour.
Shows were initially advertised at £148.50. But when fans finally reached the front of the queue, after many hours of waiting, many found that basic standing tickets had been rebranded as “in demand” and had jumped in price to £355.20.
The culprit is an increasingly common strategy known as dynamic pricing. It is commonplace in other industries but how and why did it creep into live music?
What is dynamic pricing?
When a seller does not set a fixed price for their product, but instead adjusts what they charge in response to changing demand. Airline tickets and hotel rooms are a longstanding example, rising during the school holidays or at weekends. More recently, companies such as the ride-hailing app Uber have deployed “surge pricing” to adjust prices more rapidly, in response to real-time demand fluctuations. Unlike ticketing, this in theory balances out the supply and demand equation by attracting more drivers to the area.
What about in live music?
For the biggest artists, limits on venue capacity mean there is often far more demand than supply.
In the US, dynamic pricing has long been the standard approach to this imbalance, with prices ratcheting up for the most in-demand shows. In the UK, artists have historically been more restrained, keeping ticket prices artificially low so that access is more about luck and dedication than the size of your wallet. However, in recent years dynamic pricing has become increasingly common.
How did dynamic pricing take off in the UK?
In 2018, Ticketmaster had its regular “primary” ticketing business but also owned two “secondary” ticketing websites, GetMeIn and Seatwave.
Secondary sites, which allow people to resell at any price, are overrun by professional touts, who can flip thousands of tickets for a huge profit. Amid public outcry over touting, Ticketmaster shut down GetMeIn and Seatwave, scoring a public relations victory.
Soon, fans started noticing the emergence of Ticketmaster Platinum, a controversial “premium” service that drip-fed higher-priced tickets into the market, after gigs were supposedly sold out. That year, Paul McCartney’s UK tour appeared to have sold out within minutes. But seats at the SSE Hydro in Glasgow, which had been on sale at £65, were later released via Platinum for more than £500.
Could artists stop dynamic pricing?
The decision ultimately rests with the artist, their managers and promoters. However, Ticketmaster is owned by Live Nation, a globe-spanning promotion and ticketing behemoth that is the dominant force in live music in most major economies. It has an incentive to advise the use of dynamic pricing because Ticketmaster takes a cut of the ticket price. The higher the price, the higher the cut.
Music industry sources say artists are often told that dynamic pricing deters touts from fleecing fans. In theory, the higher face-value price decreases the margin on offer for touts. However, Oasis tickets have also been dynamically priced in Ireland, where for-profit resale is illegal and secondary sites are not advertising tickets for shows at Croke Park”.
I disagree that it has to be like this. That there is no other way. It does very much seem to be down to the band. Supergrass recently announced that they are hitting the stage to celebrate thirty years of their debut album, I Should Coco, next year. When announcing the news, they took a dig at Oasis and their dynamic pricing controversy:
“Supergrass have announced a reunion tour to celebrate the 30th anniversary of their debut album.
The ten-date tour next year will be the first time the Oxford band, who split in 2010 but reunited in 2020, have ever played their debut album I Should Coco live in its entirety.
The album reached number one on the UK album charts on its release on 15 May 1995, and features tracks including Alright and Caught by the Fuzz.
Announcing the tour, the band took aim at fellow Britpop icons Oasis and the recent furore surrounding ticket sales for the Manchester-rockers' comeback shows.
"Supergrass return to perform their debut album live, in its entirety, for the first time plus a small selection of additional fan favourites," the band's announcement on Monday said.
"Dynamic pricing not included," they added, referring to a policy that saw the cost of some tickets to the upcoming Oasis gigs double due to high demand”.
IN THIS PHOTO: Siupergrass in 1995
One can argue that there has always been imbalance when it comes to ticket pricing. Most major artists tour in big venues, so you can pay relatively little and be up high and not have a great view, or you can be at a better vantage point and pay more. Some artists charge for V.I.P. tickets and there has always been this issue with that discrepancy. Also, think about artists like Taylor Swift and the fact that some fans were charged $11,000 for a ticket. It is eye-watering amounts of money! It means only celebrities and the very wealthy can afford them. These expensive tickets might also be bought by fans who can’t afford it but are determined to see an artist. That fear of missing out can lead them to make risky decisions. If you are in the same venue and all get the same experience, then why is there such a huge gulf?! It is true that most major artists’ ticket princes are high. Attending live music should be more affordable though, when you take into consideration venues’ costs and other factors, sometimes it is unavoidable. With V.I.P. tickets, you sort of know what you are paying for, yet dynamic pricing seems to offer no luxuries or benefits. Essentially fans getting the same deal as others but having to pay so much more for it! It is frustrating because you can see bands like Supergrass and brilliant artists who charge fans far less. Make it much more affordable. I don’t think artists have their hands tied and they are being forced into a corner. They can have control regarding the types of venues they play and, essentially, the cost of tickets. Oasis were reacting with greed to demand. More concerned with money and profiting than ensuring that all their fans had a fair chance to come see them, this is also true of artists like Taylor Swift and Green Day.
The U.S. band have made headlines because they are also implementing dynamic pricing for upcoming gigs. Again, the rationale seems to be that these high-priced tickets – that seem to provide no benefit or real exclusivity that would justify such a steep mark-up – makes it harder for scalpers to benefit. However, fans can buy ordinary tickets and resell them and make a big profit. I don’t believe dynamic pricing safeguards fans from scalpers. There needs to be action and activation regarding this insane ticketing system and ensuring that fans are not ripped off. That is what is happening. Dress it how you like but it boils down to this: artists are gouging fans and hiding behind flimsy excuses and a clear sense of greed. The Guardian discussed the recent announcement that Green Day tickets for a future Sydney show are going for $500:
“Dynamic ticket pricing helps combat ticket scalpers, the company behind $500 Green Day tickets claims – but music industry insiders and consumer groups dispute that, with some concerned the controversial practice skews live events to the rich.
Dynamic pricing – when the cost of products rise and fall according to demand – is well established in Australia, from Uber’s surge prices to utilities and airline fares.
It’s increasingly prevalent in entertainment, with Australian fans of Pearl Jam and now Green Day paying variously inflated amounts depending on when they bought their concert tickets. The Australian Grand Prix and Australian Open are also onboard, with seats at the 2024 men’s final fetching between $2,000 and $6,000.
On Wednesday, it was possible to buy “in demand” tickets to Green Day’s Sydney show for $399.60 to $499.60. Set price tickets started at $217.16, despite being advertised at $135.60. Tickets for the band’s Melbourne and Gold Coast shows were slightly lower and fixed at set prices.
Both Ticketmaster and Ticketek defended the practice, telling Guardian Australia prices were set by artists and their teams. They also claimed demand-driven pricing mitigates the problem of ticket scalping, when tickets are bought – often by AI bots – and resold at inflated prices.
“Artists and their teams set their prices and ticketing strategy. Ticketmaster helps execute,” a Ticketmaster spokesperson said. Cameron Hoy, the COO and head of global ticketing at TEG and Ticketek, said dynamic pricing “is directed from the artist and or promoter”.
Some artists have pushed back. The Cure labelled the practice “greedy”, while Taylor Swift chose set prices for her Australian shows and dynamic prices for other legs of her Eras world tour. Green Day’s management was contacted for comment.
In February, Michael Rapino, the president and CEO of Ticketmaster’s owner, Live Nation, told the company’s quarterly earnings meeting the “best sales pitch” for dynamic pricing – which he planned to roll out around the world – was that it ate into scalpers’ earnings.
Jarni Blakkarly of consumer rights group Choice has been investigating the “concerning” impacts of the trend that began in the US. He questioned Rapino’s theory, given Australian state and territory laws prevent resale values more than 10% above the original ticket sale value.
“If everyone purchased their tickets at different prices, how will the consumer know the price they are paying is 10% above the sale price?” he said. “I think dynamic pricing would make it harder to stop ticket scalping.”
Taylor Swift chose set prices for her Australian shows and dynamic prices for other legs of her Eras world tour. Photograph: Joel Carrett/AAP
Dion Brant, the CEO of Frontier Touring, which is promoting the tours of Luke Combs, Supergrass and Primal Scream, said about half a dozen of Frontier’s visiting artists, including Paul McCartney, have chosen to apportion a small number of dynamically priced “platinum” tickets as an anti-scalping measure.
Selling a small percentage of tickets dynamically “makes sense” because it caters to the portion of the market willing to pay more for guaranteed decent seats and the money goes to the artist rather than to “abhorrent” scalpers, he said.
But the practice is more questionable when a large portion of tickets is priced according to demand, he said.
“This notion of trying to drive demand to such a point where people will pay anything, or confuse them to such a point where they don’t know what the real price is … we’re really uncomfortable with and we look to avoid at any cost,” he said.
The practice is here to stay, said Blakkarly, who has seen dynamic pricing in US supermarkets forcing customers to pay more for chilled drinks on a hot day.
PHOTO CREDIT: Vishnu R Nair/Pexels
“There are no laws against it but there’s a valid discussion to be had about whether it should even be allowed in Australia,” he said, with the increasingly widespread practice raising “valid” questions around equity and ethics.
“At a minimum, companies need to be really open and transparent about how they are pricing tickets,” he said. “It really comes down to what consumers are willing to put up with.”
One of those was Green Day fan Madison Closter, who paid $280 for general admission to the “golden circle” standing-only section at the band’s Gold Coast show. The ticket was not dynamically priced but she said she was repeatedly unable to buy the tickets in her cart due to being told there was “no seating available for purchase”.
“This created a false sense of scarcity when purchasing,” she said.
“It is getting to the point where it is not viable for a lot of people to go to big concerts.”
Ticketek and Ticketmaster both said dynamic pricing works both ways, delivering discounted prices when demand is low – but Blakkarly said he had yet to witness that in practice.
“Do we really want to make a society where only the mega-rich can afford to go to a concert?” he said.
“There needs to be a broader public discussion about ticketing and whether live events should be more accessible to people from an equity perspective”.
It is madness that we should be discussing dynamic pricing! Rather than fans being priced out and others having to pay through the nose, there does need to be a bigger movement and campaign to ensure ticket prices remain affordable. So many gigs these days have standard tickets at such a stupidly high price! It can’t be only about the venue costs. There is an element of exploitation from artists. Plenty have provide you can play bigger spaces but keep the prices low. If scalpers and A.I. is a big threat then that needs to be tackled as soon as possible. From Oasis to Green Day, we are seeing exorbitant tickets prices overshadow the music. Venues are struggling and live music is facing a really rough patch. Seeing live music is so essential and a wonderful moment! Whilst dynamic pricing seem to be something bigger artists are implementing, it is still happening too often. Live music should not be reserved for the wealthy. Even your ordinary seats should be kept as low as possible as fans also have to factor in the cost of travel and so many other things. A gig can really stack up when it comes to cost! Dynamic pricing will put people off. It doesn’t need to be this way. We all hope we live to see the day when we say to dynamic pricing…
GOOD riddance.