As I watched Micheál Martin on RTÉ News last weekend call on MCD, the promoter of next summer’s Oasis concerts at Croke Park, to reflect on the kerfuffle around online ticket sales, I was certain it would have given the issue some thought. I’d bet the price of an Oasis VIP hospitality package that it was bloody delighted with the result, in fact. MCD and Ticketmaster have the same parent company. They’ve made a mint.
We need only cast our minds back 10 years to recall an era when people camped out to queue for coveted concert tickets. In 2014 Garth Brooks fans slept on January streets for up to four nights to secure tickets for Irish shows that were eventually cancelled.
What would you do to see your favourite act? How much would you pay? What price do you put on the convenience of not spending all those nights on a frosty footpath outside a Ticketmaster outlet in Mountmellick? You might find it difficult to put a price tag on all that, but Ticketmaster does not.
[ Oasis tickets controversy: Is ‘dynamic pricing’ any better than touting?Opens in new window ]
There were other electronic ticketing services in the United States before Ticketmaster sold its first concert tickets, for an Electric Light Orchestra gig at the University of New Mexico in 1977.
Founded by software engineers and computer salesmen, the company began its meteoric rise using aggressive marketing techniques. Some early strategies included signing venues to exclusivity contracts and encouraging their ticket desks to close on the first day of sales, to ensure all initial transactions were electronic and therefore incurred maximum service fees. By 1992 Ticketmaster had bought its nearest rivals and exceeded $1 billion in sales.
A key moment in Ticketmaster’s story was its merger in 2010 with Live Nation, the world’s largest live-entertainment company. Although investigations by competition authorities worldwide went into overdrive, the merger was approved, and Live Nation Entertainment was born. It owns and runs some of the largest venues, festivals, radio stations and artist-management and promotion companies worldwide.
Live Nation Entertainment and its Irish associates at MCD have stakes in 3Arena, the 3Olympia Theatre, the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre, the Academy, the Gaiety Theatre, Electric Picnic, Longitude, Sea Sessions, Indiependence, Kaleidoscope and Rubyworks Records, among other interests.
Although there have been several official investigations into the business practices of Live Nation Entertainment since the 2010 merger, its worldwide multibillion-dollar entertainment oligopoly had been chugging along very nicely for more than a decade.
Then, in 2022, Ticketmaster introduced dynamic pricing, under which, as with airfares and hotel-room rates, prices rise as demand for concert tickets goes up. It has led to record-breaking sales figures for concerts in the past two years. Taylor Swift’s Eras tour stands out for having grossed more than $1 billion.
When computer systems crash, fans get stuck in seemingly endless queues, media around the world report the frenzy and frustration, and politicians pitch in with soundbites, what impact do you imagine this has on dynamic pricing?
Unprecedented prices for Swift’s US gigs led politicians to scrutinise Live Nation Entertainment’s practices. The “Taylor Swift Bill”, which governor Tim Walz signed into law in Minnesota in May, promises more transparency and protection for consumers buying tickets online for live events in the state.
A couple of weeks later the US department of justice filed an antitrust lawsuit against Ticketmaster and Live Nation Entertainment, accusing them of running an illegal monopoly over live events in the United States. The outcome of the case could have repercussions around the globe.
Add secondary ticketing sites to this hot sticky mess. These platforms resell tickets, often at highly inflated prices, that were bought somewhere else originally.
Shortly after the Irish Competition and Consumer Protection Commission launched an investigation into ticket touting in 2018, Ticketmaster announced it was closing its resale sites Seatwave and GetMeIn. (Yes, Ticketmaster has its own resale systems.) It replaced them with Fan-to-Fan Resale Ticket Exchange. When Fan-to-Fan sells a ticket, Ticketmaster charges a commission, which it therefore receives in addition to its original service charge. The house always wins.
As prices for stadium and arena gigs have increased significantly in recent years, leading to record profits for some, fans have been left with less disposable income to spend on smaller gigs at grassroots venues. Independent venues in Ireland and Britain are in crisis.
The situation was summed up succinctly by Moles, an independent UK music venue, when it closed last year, after 45 years of supporting independent live music. Seven arenas “are being built that will generate hundreds of millions a year”, it said. “Of the estimated 366 grassroots venues Ed Sheeran played before making it big, 150 have closed.”
Increased profits from big live events, coupled with decreased revenue from recorded music, are pressurising some performers to commit to gruelling tour schedules that could cause them harm.
A University of Sydney study of life expectancy and cause of death of popular musicians in the US found that rock and pop musicians die up to 25 years earlier than comparable general populations and that popular musicians are between two and seven times more likely to die by suicide. Arduous concert schedules do nothing to improve these numbers.
In 2023 Robert Smith and The Cure took a stand. They chose not only to keep Ticketmaster prices low for their entire tour – some at £16 – but also to opt out of Ticketmaster’s dynamic and platinum pricing structures, which Smith claimed were a “greedy scam”.
The band persuaded Ticketmaster to refund fans after they’d been charged inflated booking fees.
Smith and The Cure also ensured that any tickets appearing on official resale sites were sold at face value. Smith posted on X, “The system that values profit over people is really what needs to be changed.”
The enduring image of the bucket-hatted lager-drinking lads from a Manchester estate doesn’t hold much Tennent’s when you see the price of a Diamond hospitality package for some stops on the Oasis tour: such tickets for Wembley Stadium, which include champagne, cocktails and a four-course dinner, have been on offer for just under €5,000 per person. Oasis are as complicit as U2, Coldplay and every other act that chooses to opt into and benefit from the great rock‘n’roll swindle perpetuated by Live Nation Entertainment.
We shoulder much of that responsibility too. The premise of dynamic pricing – which the European Commission is now to look into – is that Ticketmaster charges what we’re willing to fork out. Choose your tickets carefully. We’ll all end up paying dearly for them eventually.
Mark Graham is a lecturer and PhD candidate at South East Technological University researching music-industry ethics
