UK Investigates Ticketmaster: A Deep Dive Into Dynamic Pricing and Consumer Protection

Craig: like this next one?

Jon: oh, yes. i am so happy this happened in europe finally.

Craig: the uk government is investigating ticketmaster's dynamic pricing model after oasis chaos.

Jon: i hope this triggers the eu to also investigate because are the ones that are actually doing things about these big companies. but i'm happy this happened finally over in europe. this is yeah. this just goes to show the, like, ticketmaster's market dominance and their tactics, and it's just absolutely nuts.

Craig: yeah. and so let's, you know, summarize it. the uk is investigating ticketmaster over its use of dynamic pricing during the sale of oasis concert tickets. fans face a sudden price increase at checkout, prompting complaints and a probe by the competition and markets authority to assess whether ticketmaster violated consumer protection laws by failing to disclose how prices would change based on demand. investigation could lead to fines, changes in how ticket prices are handled, and potentially setting new standards for the ticketing industry. so, basically, you jump on to get a ticket that's a hundred and fifty bucks. you're waiting in the queue. by the time you get to the front of the queue, that same ticket is four hundred and fifty bucks.

Jon: yeah. that's nuts. so then what do you do? right? because, like, you're you've already been waiting all this time. it's trickery, and it's not okay.

Craig: like yeah. not only that, but you've gone now got twenty seconds or, you know, a minute to decide whether now you want these tickets because usually you're buying two, not just one or more.

Jon: yep.

Craig: and now they're triple two and a half to triple the price that they were. and you're saying, okay. are these worth it? and the clock is ticking down. you're gonna miss out completely if you don't pull the trigger.

Jon: exactly. yeah. that's just that's that's totally unethical, i think. totally unethical.

Craig: many fans didn't manage to buy oasis tickets before they sold out. so if they really wanted to see liam and noel on stage together for the first time in sixteen years, they may have to resort to resale sites where some are trying to sell tickets for nearly eight thousand dollars each.

Jon: that's crazy. i thought there were rules maybe it's in the eu and not the uk around, limits to reselling.

Craig: well, you were talking about some proposed limits where we talked about this before when we were talking about the ticketmaster being hacked in their barcode, that we're proposing rules to allow for ten percent mac over, face value of the ticket or something like that.

Jon: yeah.

Craig: i didn't know about it, but you were informing me.

Jon: yeah. yeah. so yeah. so it's regulated in the uk. it's a twenty fifteen act. the law mandates that resellers provide specific information about the tickets. oh, i don't know if they limit the actual price.

Craig: i'm gonna say they don't because here we are, eight thousand bucks.

Jon: yeah. okay. then they don't yeah. maybe it's the eu then.

Craig: nandi said

Jon: maybe it was something that think

Craig: the eu is proposing it. nandi said it was depressing to see vastly invaded prices, including ordinary fans, excluding ordinary fans, from having a chance to enjoy their favorite band live. yeah. working with artists and ninja fans, we can create a fair system that ends, the scourge of, touts. touts, i guess, being scalpers. rip off resales and insurers tickets are fairly priced. so, oh, keir starmer vowed to cap resale ticket prices for music and sports events. i'm not really sure how he's gonna cap the prices, because can't taylor charge whatever she wants?

Jon: no. that's resale ticket prices, he says.

Craig: yeah. still. alright. he's not talking i guess, it didn't specifically say markup. i'm not a big fan of what keir starmer is doing by everything we see online, and i don't think he's long for the government there. so, a government announced it would hold a consultation into the secondary ticket market this fall and dynamic pricing of dynamic pricing will now be factored.

Jon: oh, that's good. well, it's good. at least now it'll be brought in before they make a decision. they don't have to make any changes, and they can include it in what if they move forward. so

Craig: yeah. and let's be clear about this. this is something you know, i talked to, a couple of producers recently, and they cleared the air on some of these things with me because a lot of people don't know this. it mentioned some of it in the article, and we'll get to it. ticketmaster doesn't set the price itself. the company said that that decision is for event organizers. in other words, the promoters, but the artists have a say as well. swift, ed sheeran, and the cure are among the big names who have opted not to use dynamic pricing on recent tours. however, bruce springsteen caused this stir in twenty twenty two when he said he'll use the model. so, you know, it's not ticketmaster that's getting the extra revenue. it's the artists the, the promotion companies. and the other thing is, you know that service charge that everyone complains about?

Jon: yeah.

Craig: that goes to the artist.

Jon: okay.

Craig: so you know, this is one of the things that people don't know. the, that extra service charge, that all goes back to the promoter and the artist, minus a teeny tiny bit that almost all goes back to them. so, i wonder about all of this now because and i used to say ticketmaster. they're a bunch of bleeping bleepers.

Jon: yeah.

Craig: but i wonder. you know? they're just providing opportunities for their clients to generate more revenue with this option. but it's kinda like uber where you got surge pricing. you're trying to take a ten minute ride across town that's usually fifteen bucks, and all of a sudden it's seventy five because of the time of day. it's not really cool for people.

Jon: yeah. but i get surge pricing, higher demand. but this like, because at least with the uber, you know you kind of know what to expect, especially, like, after a concert or something like that. right? it's not fair. but the difference between that and this is that you pick your ticket at a certain price and before you're able to check out, it triples or quadruples. that's not okay. like, the price should be reflected way before when you're selecting your ticket. it should be frozen at that time. if it's my guess

Craig: is my guess is the price is frozen when you select your ticket. the problem is you're in the queue to pick a ticket because there's thousands of people when it goes live, and they only can handle a few hundred at a time. so you're in a queue. and by the time you get to the queue, the ticket started at a hundred bucks. by the time you get to the front, they're four hundred and fifty bucks or three

Jon: hundred bucks. yeah.

Craig: like, damn it. you know? because there's such a demand. and you can say surge pricing.

Jon: right? that's the thing is with concerts, the demand is the demand. right? like, it's not like it goes up and down. like, you know that when you release tickets, people are gonna wanna buy them.

Craig: but we had again, i agree that this shouldn't happen in tickets, but you think it should happen you know, it's okay to happen in some other areas. was, was it mcdonald's? i think it was mcdonald's who recently experimented with, surge based pricing, and they got the crap kicked out of them. and they pulled it back where, you know, the burgers cost more when you're like, at your rush times.

Jon: yeah. that's yeah. that's kind of

Craig: like, i'm just saying, how is that different than what you're saying? so we gotta sit back and say, alright. where do we tolerate this and where do we don't? now understanding that if it's rush hour and rush traffic and rush time and it's busy time, as a transport, you should get more money just because it takes longer. if you drew a traditional taxi across town, it's about time and distance. right?

Jon: yeah.

Craig: so, i understand that, basically, you're paying the cabbie by the hour plus by the kilometer to kinda make everything work out. great. so if it takes an hour for what should normally take ten minutes, you know, probably have to pay a little bit more. but if it's still ten minutes and the same person doing it, what's why should they charge more?

Jon: yeah. so

Craig: people can get away with it. people are experimenting with business models. i'm not against the free market trying to do all these things. just because i don't like it doesn't mean they shouldn't try it. just because i have an old funny duddy and say, i don't like the way you're changing your pricing. i don't like it when my local coffee shop increases their pricing and stuff. so just because i don't like it. but we see these weird models come up like the logitech was talking about their subscription model. we see the surge pricing for tickets. and, like, surge pricing for tickets are ridiculous because there's always a surge when they go on sale.

Jon: yeah. exactly.

Craig: so what happens is if they don't sell out, the prices slowly go back down, so you are an idiot for buying them in the first place?

Jon: i don't think they go back down, though. i think because of the demand, they stay high. i don't know. maybe i'm wrong. but, like, the only reason why i say that is because, i've looked at tickets, like like, weeks after they've been on sale, and the price is higher than it was when they first went on sale.

Craig: really?

Jon: yeah.

Craig: higher meaning, like, on ticketmaster or whatnot?

Jon: yeah. on ticketmaster.

Craig: i know, if you're using third party like stubhub, which i think ticketmaster owns, those tickets tend to go up closer and closer to the show.

Jon: okay. there's, what's that? there's a really good app. it's called

Craig: so here we are. prices can increase during high periods of demand, but if a show is not selling well, prices may decrease closer to the event date. this is because ticket vendors, including platforms like ticketmaster, want to fill the venue rather than avoiding unsold tickets. so the strategy is to optimize, sales at the highest possible price, but if the demand fails, prices can drop to attract buyers. great. so great. if they don't sell out and we're getting closer to the end of the show, we'll like, again, i know i've been to places. if you live in a big city, the best way to get free tickets is to sign up to the mailing list of all the, concert houses.

Jon: free else?

Craig: no. sign up to the concert houses themselves. they all have mailing list. they all have little, like, the phoenix. the phoenix is great for this. so this is the inside tip. the phoenix and toronto, go. sign up to their mailing list. sign up to all their free ticket. yeah. you can win these tickets. you can win these tickets because you know what? i used to get a crap ton of free tickets because when they don't sell out, they start giving away to those people. so the win sometimes they're giving away, you know, a hundred or two hundred.

Jon: yeah. so i'll check. phoenix is closing.

Craig: nah. it's sad. they're all closing.

Jon: january twenty twenty five.

Craig: oh, that's too bad.

Jon: i know. it's super sad. they brought in a lot of good i'm a huge eighties and nineties hip hop. they brought in a lot of great hip hop acts. they're the only ones that ever did, so i'm really sad.

Craig: a lot of great memories at the phoenix. that's really sad. i'm gonna have to reach out to, a couple of my friends to see if there's gonna be, like, a final show or something that i can be part of. yeah. i'm not necessarily part of. i've got stories we'll tell another time.