Heather du Plessis-Allan: I can't wait to see what comes out of the Oasis ticketing fiasco

I'm going to be fascinated to see what comes of the Oasis ticketing fiasco in the UK - but I imagine it would be nothing.

What's happened is that Oasis tickets went on sale this weekend for as low as $280, but after spending hours in the online queues to get the tickets, they were $710 by the time people got to buy them - plus fees on top of that. 

And people are furious. Because what a lot of people don’t realise is that Ticketmaster uses what's called 'dynamic pricing'.

It works like Uber's surge pricing - when no one wants to buy the tickets, they're cheap. When everyone wants to buy them from around the world, they jack up the price.

It's just basic supply and demand.

The Government over in the UK heard how upset people got and have now promised a review of it - and this is where I think it’ll get interesting.

What are they going to find, that Ticketmaster's done something wrong here?

Plenty of businesses do this. I just named Uber, the price for hotels goes up on the weekends, prices for resorts in Fiji go up in the school holidays, airlines raise their prices the fewer and fewer seats they have left on a flight - the more people want, the fewer things are available, so they jack up the prices.

So you probably can’t argue they’re doing anything wrong in jacking up the Oasis ticket prices

There may be an argument that they're doing something wrong by not being transparent about it. They're not telling you they’re doing it, they're not telling you how they're doing it - and maybe you can argue there.

But is forcing them to be transparent going to bring the price down? Probably not.

The fact is, people from around the world tried to buy Oasis tickets on Saturday night - it was in demand.

As much as I hate being ripped off, can we really argue Ticketmaster did anything wrong here? 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, I'm going to be fascinated to see what comes
of the Oasis ticketing for fiasco in the UK at
the moment, and I would bet probably nothing will come
of this. What happened is that the tickets went on
sale I think it was on Saturday night. It was
basically over the weekend New Zealand time for as low
as people will be expecting to be able to pick
up tickets for as low as two hundred and eighty dollars,

(00:21):
But then what was happening was they were spending hours
in the queues online to get to those tickets and
when they finally got to the ticket, two hundred and
eighty dollars was now seven hundred and ten dollars plus
fees on top of it. And people were furious because
of this. Because of course, what people don't realize and
people don't realize this happens in New Zealand as well,
is that ticket Master uses what is called dynamic pricing,

(00:41):
and it basically is like Uber's surge pricing, where no
one wants to buy the tickets they're really cheap, like
where nobody wants to drop to catch an Uber you
can get it for like nine bucks right, But when
everyone wants to buy these tickets from around the world,
they jack up the price at ticket Master. It's basic
supply and demand stuff. The government over the in the
UK heard how upset people are about it, so now

(01:02):
promising a review of it. And this is where I
think it's gonna get interesting, because when they finish the review,
what are they gonna find that ticket Master has done
something wrong here? Plenty of businesses do this uber I
just name them as one. Hotels do it. You're gonna
pay more at the weekend, then you're gonna pay during
the weekday. Results in Fiji do it. The prices go
up during the school holidays. Airlines do it. The prices

(01:25):
go higher and higher the fewer seats they have left
on the plane. It's basically, the more people want, the
fewer of the things are available, they jack up the price.
So probably you can't argue that ticket Master is doing
anything wrong when it's jacking up the Oasis ticket price prices.
There may be an argument here, though, that they are
doing something wrong by not being transparent about this. So
by not telling you they're doing it, or not telling

(01:46):
you how they're doing it, maybe you can argue there.
But then all you're gonna do is you're going to
force them to be transparent. Is that going to bring
the price down? I'm not so sure. The fact is
people from around the world, around the world try to
buy a limited number of Oasis tickets over the weekend.
It was demand. So as much as I hate being
ripped off and sometimes I feel like I am by

(02:08):
ticket prices, can we really argue that ticket Master actually
did anything wrong.

Speaker 2 (02:11):
Here for more from Hither Duplessy Allen Drive. Listen live
to news talks. It'd be from four pm weekdays, or
follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.