Dynamic Ticket Pricing

Debate between John Slinger and Chris Bryant

Tuesday 10th September 2024 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

The hon. Gentleman is a terribly impatient man; I am just coming that. [Interruption.] No, we have until 7.30. He is right that we must take action on the secondary ticketing market, and we committed ourselves to doing so during the general election. We believe that those people are denying true fans the opportunity to buy tickets on the primary market and are pocketing any profit for themselves. As I said, very little of the additional revenue actually goes to artists, venues or anyone working in the live venue sector more generally. The Government are committed to putting fans back at the heart of live events, and to clamping down on unfair practices in the secondary ticketing market.

That is why we have committed to introducing new protections for consumers on ticket resales, and we will be launching a consultation in the autumn to find the best ways to address ongoing problems on the resale market. The consultation will consider a range of options, including revisiting recommendations from the Competition and Markets Authority’s 2021 report, such as putting limitations on the price of tickets listed for resale over the face value; limiting the number of tickets that individual resellers can list to the number of tickets that they can legitimately buy via the original platform; making platforms accountable for the accuracy of information about tickets that they list for sale; and ensuring that the CMA has the powers that it needs to take swift, decisive action against platforms and touts to protect consumers.

We want live events ticketing to work for UK fans. I would say that the market was made for humanity, not humanity for the market, and sometimes Government need to intervene to ensure that the market does indeed work for humanity.

[John Slinger (Rugby) (Lab)]

As an Oasis fan, I too was queuing endlessly, and it proved to me that badly regulated markets have no morality. The conclusion from the dynamic pricing policy in that incident was that people with more money or touts could get those tickets. I speak as someone who played in rock bands when I was a younger man, although none so famous and successful as that of the hon. Member for Perth and Kinross-shire (Pete Wishart). Live music is universal in that it reaches out to the souls of people of all backgrounds. I would be grateful for the Minister’s view on what he can do to ensure that as many people as possible can get tickets for live music.

[Chris Bryant]

Persuade people to do more gigs, I guess. Obviously, there are only so many tickets for certain events, but what people want to have guaranteed is that the market is not excluding them solely on the basis of price. Sometimes there is a ballot for tickets, as there is for Wimbledon, and I gather that Oasis has now introduced a partial ballot for the next round of gigs that are being advertised, but we want to look at all these issues in the round.

I should say something about the CMA announcement. Like many Members across the House, I know lots of people, including my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby (John Slinger) and the Leader of the House, with stories about their process of trying to buy tickets two weekends ago for the Oasis reunion tour—I should point out that Oasis only reunites under a Labour Government. In the light of the concerns expressed by fans about the sales process, we welcome the CMA’s announcement that it has launched a formal investigation into Ticketmaster. The CMA has said that it is

“concerned that fans trying to buy Oasis tickets through Ticketmaster may not have been given clear information about ticket prices”

and has asked fans to share their experiences. Its investigation will look at whether the sale of Oasis tickets by Ticketmaster may have breached consumer protection law.

Others have greater freedom in what they can say than I do as a Minister. This is a live investigation and the CMA is an independent law enforcement body, and it is important to ensure that the independence and integrity of any investigation is protected, so, in order to avoid prejudicing the process, I am not going to comment on that investigation. I look forward to reading the CMA’s findings and I merely note that lots of people have said that they would like their money back. Following recent events, however, the Government will look at issues concerning the transparency and use of dynamic pricing in the live events sector, and we are carefully considering how that is taken forward in the light of the CMA’s announcement.

I want to talk specifically about dynamic pricing for a moment. In general terms, dynamic pricing involves a business adjusting its prices according to changing market conditions such as high and low demand. It is an established pricing strategy and it has been a feature of our live events industry for some time, at least in certain forms. As an example, I am sure that many Members will have managed to snap up cut-price tickets to popular west end shows by purchasing them on the day of the event. We are used to seeing organisers or venues slash their prices in that way in order to fill the few remaining seats.

It is also common to see early-bird tickets released at lower prices—punters essentially receive a discount on full-price tickets for an event by buying their tickets within a certain period after they go on sale or until a limited batch has been sold. Glastonbury does that, Wigmore Hall does that for people who are signed up to its programme, and for that matter, the Rhondda arts festival in Treorchy also does that. I urge people to look online and buy some tickets for next year.

In both of those scenarios, there are fans who benefit from a better deal than they might otherwise have been able to secure had they bought their tickets at another time. Equally, there will be other fans who bought their tickets at another time and had to pay a different, or indeed higher, price. Hon. Members will have their own views on all this, but I suggest it is a trade-off that most people are accustomed to, and one that we can generally accept.