Ticketmaster sale of Oasis tickets

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MrEarl

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Hello,

I was wondering, has anyone ever tried making a complaint about Ticketmaster, on anti-competitive grounds?

While, in theory, there is competition in the marketplace, in reality, they have a defacto monopoly.

By extension, they charge what they want on fees, with no competitive pressure to keep fees reasonable, and their service is dreadful.

Is this one for the Competition Authority (CCPC ?) or have people previously tried and got nowhere?
 
Thank you, Mr. Burgess.

I think it fair to say, that nothing has changed, in real terms....

Perhaps time that CCPC revisit the matter.
 
Knuttell said:
I wonder was dynamic pricing a thing back when this investigation took place?
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I wonder if the Regulator was asleep at the wheel, then they last looked at this situation with TM?

Regardless, it seems appropriate for them to look, again.

I don't recall looking at buying tickets for any music event, in recent years, where tickets weren't being exclusively sold through TM


I see a couple of politicans area also taking the opportunity to score a point with the public, on this issue.
 
I would have thought a website and app to sell tickets is a pretty contestable market.

Where is Ticketmaster’s moat?
 
Brendan Burgess said:
What specific anti-competitive behaviour are you concerned about?
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Both Ticketmaster and Live Nation have the same ownership.

I believe that they are working togeather to keep rival ticket sellers from securing opportunity to sell tickets, given Live Nation promote the majority of high profile music events, for example. That, in turn, positions then to charge fees that are higher than might otherwise be the case, if there was true competition - and that's anti consumer.

Imagine if legislation demanded that at least two independent parties must sell tickets for each event.
 
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MrEarl said:
Both Ticketmaster and Live Nation have the same ownership.

I believe that they are working togeather to keep rival ticket sellers from securing opportunity to sell tickets, given Live Nation promote the majority of high profile music events, for example.
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The GAA used tickets.ie for ticketing up to a year or two ago. They must have had good reason to move to Ticketmaster as they normally like dealing with domestic suppliers and service providers. I would reckon that median customer experience has improved since they made that switch.
 
Brendan Burgess said:
It was.

Most airlines have been doing it for years.
Hotels as well.

Brendan
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The CCPC report was dated late 2021 and Ticketmaster didn't introduce Dynamic pricing until 2022 (just from reading articles on internet) this would have placed Dynsmic pricing as employed by Ticket Master outside scope of report (I imagine).
 
The initial press release stated the ticket prices didnt it?
Its very unfair that the advertised price went up by so much from the advertised price over such a short period. It should be at the advertised price "while stocks last"

Imagine Tesco selling an item for €X from Monday 9am and due to public demand, it went up to €4X by 9.30.
 
AndroidMan said:
Imagine Tesco selling an item for €X from Monday 9am and due to public demand, it went up to €4X by 9.30.
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Then you would not buy the item or get up earlier.

Don't get me wrong - it is distasteful that Oasis are exploiting their fans like this but you can choose not to attend the concert.
 
Brendan Burgess said:
I don't like it either but I am not sure why it's different from airlines and hotels?

I benefit from it when I can book my flights months in advance and it costs me if I want to fly at short notice.
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Hello Mr. Burgess,

I think there's an important difference - with regards to hotel or airline bookings - you have options, with both of those examples.

There's a, in both instances, so you can fly with a different airline, use a different method of transport (perhaps), book with a rival hotel, or a guesthouse, or air b'n'b etc.

There's no alternative here - you either book with TM, or you don't get to go to the event.
 
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If you look at the cold hard numbers though, there were 160,000 tickets and around 500,000 people looking to buy them. If it was a bond issuance, we’d say it was too cheap.

The dynamic pricing piece, whilst very irritating, is genius. I have two friends who paid €1,200 for two normal standing tickets (insane). It’s genius and just commerce at its best/worst to have a system which can extract that sort of money from paying customers.
 
Brendan Burgess said:
What specific anti-competitive behaviour are you concerned about?

It's not enough to say that they are very successful and very expensive. I presume that they must do something anti-competitive.

Brendan
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Abuse of a dominant position.
 
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