Acting now can create an ‘Oasis’ of opportunity for grassroots music

Fans who missed out on the mad scramble for tickets to the Oasis revival tour faced a double whammy of disappointment.

Within hours, some of those same tickets were back on sale at massively inflated prices, with touts asking up to £6,000, or about forty times the face-value price of a standing ticket.

It didn’t help that use of ‘dynamic’ ticket pricing had already hiked the official ‘face value’ of an Oasis ticket beyond what most people felt was reasonable. 

So intense was the interest in Noel and Liam Gallagher’s summer 2025 reunion that there was always going to be in high demand. And so, the official ticket seller’s algorithm priced those tickets according to the number of people waiting patiently in online queues, sending the cost spiralling from £148 more than £355 in some instances. 

Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy was quick to respond, calling the inflated pricing of Oasis tickets “incredibly depressing” and pledging that dynamic pricing would be included in a government review of the ticket resale market that had been promised in the Labour election manifesto.

 “Access to music, drama and sport has become difficult and expensive because of ticket touting. Labour will put fans back at the heart of events by introducing new consumer protections on ticket resales,” Labour’s manifesto had promised.

That review got properly underway this week with the launch of Putting fans first: consultation on the resale of live events tickets.

Consultation will take a two-pronged approach: exploring ways to improve the overall ticket resale market, including measures to tackle excessive prices, support better enforcement of consumer protection laws, improve platform accountability and increase transparency for fans; and exploring whether consumers are being impaired by a lack of transparency particularly as it relates to pricing practices like algorithmic dynamic pricing.

Consultation will inform the government’s policy on ticket resales. Proposals include making it illegal for tickets to be resold beyond a certain percentage premium, or for an individual to sell more tickets than they were entitled to buy in the first place.

It would make ticket selling websites accountable, introduce a strong deterrent against ticket touting and ensure that unlawful behaviour is penalised.

But this consultation potentially misses a beat, appearing light on detail of how any clampdown on ticket touting and dynamic pricing might be made to benefit the many artists and small venues that are struggling to stay in business.

It is a battle that the Music Venues Trust (MVT) has been fighting since before the pandemic, calling for profits from arena shows to be funnelled back to the grassroots, so that they can in turn support the smaller venues which gave bands like Oasis their first showcases.

The music business model has changed beyond recognition in recent years, profiting established big name acts but starving those starting out. Spiralling costs of arena ticket shows are to the detriment of the smaller shows, which struggle to compete. Despite a promising revival in vinyl sales, streaming means that fledgling acts make little money from their music. Bands now largely depend on live shows for a living, but that is difficult to sustain when they are just setting out and venues are closing.

The government has already undertaken separate consultation on support for grassroots music venues. Speaking in response in November, Creative Industries Minister Sir Chris Bryant called on the live music industry to work together to introduce a voluntary levy on all stadium and arena tickets to help support grassroots venues, festivals, artists and promoters.

The MVT is now working with the music industry representatives to encourage the voluntary levy to be introduced, suggesting that it can expect a statutory levy if it does not agree. The Government has set a deadline for ‘tangible’ progress to have been made during the first quarter of 2025.

Momentum is finally shifting in favour of fans, musicians and small venues, and it is now therefore time for the government to increase the volume of its support. Indeed, others have already called for a more holistic approach.

Responding to the Government’s announcement of a consultation on ticket buying and pricing practices, Chair of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, Dame Caroline Dinenage, Conservative MP for Gosport, said the Government’s proposals would go some way to help address the perverse incentives that are punishing music fans, paying too much whether to ticket companies or touts.

“Fan voices must be amplified within Whitehall and the live music ecosystem. This consultation should be a precursor to the Government launching a comprehensive fan-led review of music, as called for by the Culture, Media and Sport Committee,” she added. 

“It needs to look closely at how the music industry is working and how to ensure music lovers' money gets to the small venues and fledgling artists and songwriters who feed this fundamental sector.”

Many thousands of music fans, venues and aspiring artists will no doubt agree that by acting quickly, the government can create an ‘Oasis’ of opportunity for a struggling grassroots music sector.