No-way-sis: Ticketmaster’s Oasis farce hurts Irish consumers- Boland

Actions of Ticketmaster made a mockery of gig goers and duty of care to consumers, a Fine Gael General Election Candidate has said.

Grace Boland, General Election Candidate for Dublin Fingal West, said: “Like many 90’s kids, I was gutted to find myself stuck in a queue all morning trying to access tickets that were simply never going to be realized. Moving from 500,000th to 450,000th in the farcical online queue was of little comfort.

“The one or two who I spoke with that were lucky enough to get through, found themselves left with only the choice of extortionate platinum tickets costing €490.50 or in demand standing tickets priced at €415.50.

“Fans who joined the queue early, only to find themselves behind tens of thousands of others, were left with no choice but to purchase these premium tickets

“This is clearly Ticketmaster incorporating tout pricing into the face value of the tickets. It’s unacceptable, and it’s clear as day that Ticketmaster is working to achieve what ticket touts were doing, only now it’s being done in plain sight under the guise of ‘premium’ pricing.

“After work by former TD Noel Rock, Fine Gael introduced legislation in 2021 that banned the reselling of tickets for more than their face value—a move aimed at curbing ticket touting and protecting consumers.

“We’re seeing Ticketmaster circumvent the spirit of that law by inflating the initial sale prices to levels that were previously only seen on the resale market.

“This abuse of consumers is downright lousy, but more pertinent is that it exposes the monopoly like status of ticket sales in Ireland.

“Irish music fans deserve better than to be fleeced at every turn. Further to this, the use of surge pricing I believe merits serious investigation by the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission.” Boland concluded.