Oasis fans, many of whom have waited 15 years for the band to reunite, are scrambling to secure a spot at the reunion tour next year after tickets went on sale Saturday. They’re being met with ticket prices many times over the pricing set by the band.
Taking note of the exorbitant pricing on third-party sites, the band is warning buyers that tickets can only be resold at face value through two online sellers: Ticketmaster and Twickets.
“Tickets appearing on other secondary ticketing sites are either counterfeit or will be cancelled by the promoters,” the band’s account tweeted on Saturday.
It was their second such warning in two days since presale began on Friday.
The British rock band, led by famously feuding brothers Noel and Liam Gallagher, will play 17 dates in Cardiff, Manchester, London, Edinburgh and Dublin starting July 4.
More than 1 million tickets went on sale on Saturday morning, according to The Associated Press, with prices starting at just under the equivalent of $100 (74 pounds) and going up to $666 for a package that includes a pre-show party and merchandise.
However, face-value ticket prices sold through Ticketmaster are not necessarily fixed price and can change, due to the company's “dynamic pricing” system, where prices rise in line with demand. Some tickets on the platform rose to more than quadruple the starting price, with the lowest (standing room tickets) later costing $466 before fees.
By Saturday afternoon Eastern time, all gigs had sold out. "Please check back later as more [tickets] may be released," read a note on Ticketmaster.
Yet, on third-party resale websites such as StubHub and Viagogo, plenty of tickets remained available for purchase. Some single tickets were going for well over $7,000 — 70 times their original price — several hours after the band issued its warning to resellers.
On Ticketmaster, fans faced long queues and glitches, some of whom saw the line collapse before they had a chance to scoop up tickets.
What’s believed to be a fragile and short-lived sibling reunion has added to fans’ excitement of seeing them live — of maybe catching a whiff of the tension in person — before Oasis (maybe? definitely?) breaks up again.
On social media, many have turned to Oasis lyrics and memes to cope with the ticket chaos. One person posted a mock photo of the Ticketmaster site, with text joking that Oasis had already split up while they were in the queue.
Earlier this year, the Justice Department sued Ticketmaster's owner, Live Nation Entertainment, for having an alleged monopoly on live entertainment. The antitrust lawsuit alleges that Ticketmaster stifles competition and artificially inflates ticket prices through exclusive deals with venues.
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