The anger generated by the Ticketmaster-powered Oasis ticket sale this weekend could power Noel Gallagher’s Marshall amps for the whole tour, but there is some positive news at least – the resale app Twickets has just announced that it’s capping fees to prevent fans from being ripped off (twice).
The Oasis 2025 tour general sale, which took place on Saturday August 31, sparked an outcry from fans, whose ticket-buying plans were derailed either by cruel tech problems from three official vendors (Ticketmaster, See Tickets and Gigs and Tours) or controversial ‘dynamic pricing’ that saw some prices shoot up significantly as the day progressed.
Fortunately, there is a chink of light for the millions who missed out on getting Oasis tickets for the band’s tour, which starts on July 4, 2025. Twickets, which is one of only two official ticket resale sites (alongside, yes, Ticketmaster Fan-to-Fan) has announced that it’s reducing its booking fee to 10% of the overall transaction (plus a 1% transactional fee to cover bank charges).
More importantly, Twickets says it has also “introduced a fee cap of £25 per tickets for these shows”. That’s because Ticketmaster’s dynamic pricing drove some tickets, which originally had a face value of around £150, to over £480 each – which meant buying them on resale would incur a hefty fee on top, as Twickets charges its fees as a percentage of the overall sale.
While this doesn’t address the issue of Oasis tickets being inflated to supernova heights thanks to the promoter, band and Ticketmaster, it should mean there’ll be a chance of picking up tickets for the 2025 tour without being royally fleeced.
Twickets took the opportunity to throw some well-earned shade at secondary ticket sites like Viagogo, which have been happy to host Oasis resale tickets costing thousands.
Talking about its move to cap booking fees, Twickets said: “This ensures that Twickets remains hugely competitive against the secondary market, including sites such as Viagogo, Gigsberg and StubHub. Not only do these platforms inflate ticket prices way beyond their original face value but they also charge excessive booking fees, usually in the region of 30-40%. Twickets by comparison charges an average fee of around 12.5%.”
If you’ve somehow already bought Oasis resale tickets through Twickets, the platform says you’ll also be refunded the difference between what you paid and the new £25 per ticket cap.
Ticketmaster defends itself
So how has Ticketmaster responded to the barrage of criticism fired its way from an angry Oasis fans? It told us that it effectively acted on orders from Oasis and its promoters.
Ticketmaster told us that “all ticket prices, including Platinum, In Demand, and VIP, are set by the tour”. It also directed us towards an explanation of its ‘platinum’ and ‘in demand’ tickets (which effectively act like Uber surge pricing), which confirms that “promoters and artists set ticket prices”.
Still, while Ticketmaster can get away with passing that particular buck, it doesn’t explain the tech problems that left many hurling their laptops through the nearest window, despite following all of the official Oasis ticket-buying advice.
In response to this, Ticketmaster told us: “As anticipated, millions of fans accessed our site and were placed in a queue, which moved along as they bought tickets. We always advise fans to hold their place in line, make sure they’re only using one tab, clear cookies, and ensure they aren’t using any VPN software on their device”. In other words, Ticketmaster says it was largely user error.
As for those seeking to profit from their Oasis tickets by selling them for huge markups on the likes of Viagogo, Ticketmaster confirmed that “selling tickets on unauthorised resale platforms breaches the promoter’s terms and conditions and may result in those tickets being cancelled”. However, it didn’t respond to our request for an explanation of how those tickets will be cancelled and when they might be resold.
It remains to be seen how many Oasis tickets will be resold for their standard face value (rather than the inflated ‘dynamic pricing’ rate), but Twickets does at least vet the tickets it sells and caps their price at face value – so downloading the app for iOS or Android and setting up an alert really is the only way to go if you want to see the Gallagher brothers next year.
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mark.wilson@futurenet.com (Mark Wilson)
