Oasis Reunion Ticket Chaos Explained

Don’t look back in anger, they say. It’s hard not to. The Oasis ticket sale was a glaring sign large concerts must change tactics when shifting tickets on mass.

10 min read

The biggest reunion of all time.

An estimated 40 million punters going for tickets. Globally.

Roughly 1.4 million available. Only 2% will be successful.

What could possibly go wrong?

The Oasis reunion may be the biggest ticket war of the digital age. If you were one of many attempting to nab tickets on Saturday morning, you would have battled one of three eventualities - an utter failure of technology, eye-watering dynamic pricing or a fortunate arrival at the checkout.

It will go down in history as one of the most chaotic ticket sales, surpassing Knebworth at the height of Oasis Mania. Now the dust has settled, it is only right to ask: What went wrong, why was the ticket method selected and are there more efficient ways to market large-scale event tickets in future?

The anticipation

Don’t look back in anger, they say. It’s hard not to.

The brit-pop giants teased an impending announcement coming 27th August. This message began at festivals including Reading and Leeds, and Blossoms’ huge headline Wythenshawe Park. Thousands, if not millions, began re-speculating the possibility of a reunion. When Liam and Noel Gallagher shared the countdown on their social channels, everything was all but confirmed.

It turned out to be a reunion and tour. Tickets were due to go on sale within less than a week with the initial shows including several dates at ginormous stadiums and parks in Cardiff, Manchester, London, Edinburgh and Dublin.

Regardless of your age, it only took a glance at social media to see the demand was ludicrous. This prompted a divide among fans on who was the most deserving, out of nervousness for what was to become a ticket war. To hype up the long-anticipated event even further, Oasis said: “The guns have fallen silent. The stars have aligned. The great wait is over. Come see. It will not be televised.”

Following this statement, they added more dates to the existing venues and triggered a pre-sale ballot for fans with an email address. Presale was scheduled for 24 hours ahead of general on-sale and reportedly went smoothly for anyone selected. The experience allowed lucky fans an almost guaranteed opportunity to pick up tickets at their chosen venue and date.

This smooth experience, as expected, was far from what happened just a day later.

The big day

It was all part of a masterplan. Clearly.

On 31st August, all tickets became available on three ticket vendors: Ticketmaster, Seetickets and GigsAndTours. Disorder, panic and frustration began at 8am during the Irish sale, and ramped up an hour later when everything else went live.

A crowd larger than Taylor Swift descended onto these websites, completely overworking and frying the servers. Within minutes, Ticketmaster began experiencing severe technical difficulties and automatically implemented standard best practices to manage large numbers through the ticket purchasing funnel.

New site visitors were asked to join a queue to enter the website, and existing users joined queues to begin accessing their preferred dates. While queuing, many faced error messages which subsequently booted them from the website, or were accused of being a BOT. If this wasn't disheartening enough, other hurdles included broken site functionality when arriving at the checkout - meaning buttons did not work. This was a cruel reality I faced myself the first time I made it to the checkout.

During this technical disaster, other vendors Seetickets and GigsAndTours remained largely inaccessible to many, instead giving fans a holding page for the duration. Seetickets in particular had already begun experiencing challenges before the sale started. Errors and poor servers were to be expected under the circumstances, avid ticket buyers are aware of this painful process for huge events. However, things heated up when dynamic pricing reared its ugly head.

If you were fortunate enough to make it through the endless queues, there was a high probability you were greeted with a hiked-up face value price. During the ticket queues, Ticketmaster’s dynamic pricing increased the prices based on market demand, which saw general admission skyrocket from £155 to over £355. Unsurprisingly many fans felt cheated and had minutes to decide whether to invest or bail.

In my experience, we optimistically prepared our chosen dates at 6am on the day. Fairly quickly, we made it to what looked like a ticket selection screen. Unfortunately, after trying for a substantial length of time, none of the functionality allowed us to proceed. Our next best bet was to take the plunge and refresh. After doing so, we joined a handful of queues, which we remained in for roughly 2-3 hours.

Upon reaching the checkout for a second time, prices were now marked up to more than double, which was bordering unaffordable. This price was so high, it may as well have been a ticketing tout. In the heat of the moment, we attempted to purchase one, despite the price, to see if we were able to complete the full process. As per our previous efforts, we were unable to check out almost 4 hours after our first attempt.

At 7pm, Oasis announced all dates had officially sold out. Although the band condemned reselling tickets and persisted these would be cancelled, large numbers appeared on sites like ViaGoGo immediately. Some are being sold for a whopping £7,000, which is morally abhorrent.

The backlash

Stop crying your heart out, you’re not alone.

As expected, social media was a firestorm of complaints, conversation and controversy throughout Saturday. Some vented their frustration, while others joked about how pathetic the situation was.

What is dynamic pricing?

Stop the clocks, what happened to the price?

Dynamic pricing has been around since 2022 on Ticketmaster and is legal under consumer protection laws. The process is similar to booking hotels, flights or holidays, where ticket prices fluctuate based on demand or seasonal peaks. Whether dynamic pricing has a place in the music and event industry is a debate for another day, but it isn’t the first time it’s come under scrutiny from ticket-buyers. Only recently we saw it happen with popstars Sabrina Carpenter and Taylor Swift, which left fans priced out of tickets.

While conversation comes and goes around dynamic pricing, millions experiencing it first-hand for a show as culturally important as Oasis has now called for a full investigation.

On the contrary, Jonathan Brown, chief executive of the Society of Ticket Agents and Retailers, spoke to the BBC and praised ticketing websites for coping with the demand and stressed prices were set by the band. He explained that people ‘under-estimated’ what a big operation this was.

While we disagree with dynamic pricing in the music industry, the core frustration of many is the absence of how these prices are communicated ahead of the show and during on-sale. The hunger for these shows was blatantly obvious, so a sporadic change in price ‘due to demand’ during on-sale was beyond justifiable.

Elsewhere, this Autumn, the newly formed UK government are already planning on hatching a plan to fight resale tickets and ‘rip-off’ touts.

How the sale should’ve gone down?

Hey now - who’s fault was all of this?

As you’ve likely realised, what happened at the weekend is a glaring example of everything wrong with the ticket industry. Larger artists must change tactics when shifting tickets on mass. Not only for the sanity and fairness of their audience but to avoid ticketing touts.

It’s not hard to imagine this was an intentionally orchestrated move from Oasis and/or their team, in an attempt to break records or showcase the surreal demand for their resurgence. At the same time, it’s equally viable that the band kept well-clear of logistics.

Ticket websites are notoriously lacklustre when it comes to managing site traffic. Seetickets and GigsAndTours were appallingly bad. However, in this instance, not all of the blame lies here. There are several ways each vendor can improve but a sale of this size shouldn’t have happened like this in the first place.

When it comes to Ticketmaster in particular, they handle the colossal site traffic in the only way they’re able to, which is by grouping sessions and halting new visitors. This is a shortfall of the digital world, meaning you feel powerless over your ticket. The alternative is physically queuing for tickets outside a record store, which would be a health and safety nightmare in 2024.

With a sale this monumental, it’s surprising a registration process like Glastonbury wasn’t utilised. Then again, Oasis’ reunion is so big, that there’s not much else you can do to mitigate the inevitable demand.

Registration and verification with an ID, each with a unique code
Selling tickets in waves, to manage site traffic
Offering presale to residents who live in the city of a venue
Selling a proportion of tickets offline, partnering up with record stores

So, who’s fault was it? Technically, nobody.

But there are wider industry changes required to avoid this in future.

How dynamic pricing could change?

Dynamic pricing can not live forever - at least in music.

The music business is going through a period of reform during the digital age, particularly with streaming, artist pay and social media. There are bags of money in the industry, but whether it’s equally spread out is often up for debate. Adding dynamic pricing to the mix, which directly impacts fans, is a surefire way to discourage or de-motivate music lovers from embracing culture.

Culture has more long-term impact than any economic gain on offer, and while music has also become notoriously expensive for artists, labels and press, this isn’t necessarily the answer.

If dynamic pricing is to remain in this industry, transparency has to be at the forefront for consumers to take part. Either a cost banding is required, or the ticket price freezes based on when you join the queue, but remains visible throughout the process.

Whether Oasis had a hand in deciding the prices is up in the air, and there is no current evidence. In recent times, Ed Sheeran among others has refused to use dynamic pricing. In 2020, Crowded House tickets were sold as ‘in-demand’ with the band unaware. To apologise, they refunded everyone who paid the difference.

08/09 Update: Oasis has released a statement explaining they were not directly involved in dynamic pricing during their ticket sale. They have also offered two dates in London restricted to a ballot-only approach.

Final Thoughts

Thousands have thrown shade at the band for an expensive and convoluted ticket process. Many have said that the experience has taken the shine away from the reunion.

Let’s be real for a second. Oasis is one of the biggest bands of all time, and even with the best ticketing process in the world, millions would still miss out. However, it has opened up an important conversation in the industry about how these ticket experiences can be improved, the role of dynamic pricing and how we can stop touts from selling tickets for thousands.

Sometimes it takes a fiasco of this size to drive change in the world, and we’re hoping this is one of those leading examples.

Has it taken away from the biggest reunion of all time? In our eyes, we’re still of the opinion Oasis returning will be a unifying event for the entirety of the United Kingdom. Whether it’s a united happiness, a united fight against a fairer ticket experience or a united love for music - Oasis returning is still a good thing. And one which will go down in music history.

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