Liam Gallagher and Noel Gallagher photographed by Simon Emmett
So how did you go?
Oasis' highly anticipated reunion has officially sold out on all their 17 tour dates in the UK next year in less than 10 hours. The brothers Liam and Noel Gallagher decided to put their differences aside to put on the tour. The group disbanded 15 years ago following a backstage brawl between the brothers at the Rock en Seine festival in Paris.
Many scrambled to get their hands on tickets while deal with technically difficulties and price hikes. As one of the lucky ones to have slide away with a ticket, I will share mine and others nail biting experience.
As soon the reunion was announced, I decided to postpone my holiday to the UK from March/April to July/August. I got on to Ticketmaster around 5:30pm AEST and prepped for the expected long que. Me vs The World. Little did I know how long would it be until I was actually even given the opportunity to select tickets.
At first I was taken to a que for the que. I thought the hardest part was over. After that, I selected my preferred tour date, 25th of July at Wembley Stadium (Live Aid, Queen and INXS came to mind of the historic concerts that have cemented the stadium). Then the challenge began.
My number was 152,350. Undoubtedly the longest wait time I have ever had to endure for any concert or festival. After 6 hours of checking my phone, getting sleepy and making sure I was at a good spot at home for internet connection, it was finally my turn.
At midnight, I selected the GA tickets. A prompt came up saying "Unfortunately we were unable to reserve your chosen seats, please choose a different set of seats to continue". My heart dropped. Thinking I might've just wasted 6 hours for nothing. I reselected GA, same message, tried again, same message, tried selecting a seat at the back, same message. Didn't know what to do. Was it a glitch? pending transactions?. I don't know what happened next but after I reselected GA for the final time before I gave up, the page changed to the payment screen. Grabbing my credit card, I secured my spot in History.
I noticed there was a sudden change in GA prices labelled "In Demand" tickets. It cost me £364.80 ($708 AUD including a collectors souvenir ticket) which was 2x more than it's original pricing of £151.
A representative for Ticketmaster explained that the site doesn't set the prices for tickets and redirected us to an explainer webpage for 'in demand' and 'platinum' tickets. The page adds that 'promoters and artists set ticket prices and 'prices can be either fixed or market-based', with the latter including the options for 'in demand' prices.
Speaking to a few attempted ticket buyers, they could not justify spending so much for 1 show. Many were booted from the que at peak times after being accused of being a bot or the page had timed out. Like I said earlier it's You vs The World.
"There has got to be a fairer, simpler, more efficient way of selling tickets that isn’t so open to touts, scammers, resellers & bots" - Journalist Dan Walker said on X
Missed out on Tickets? Ticketmaster announced that resale options will be available from 2nd of September with face pricing from the original ticket holder.
Well the article is 5 stars but I reckon I give Oasis about 3. Entertaining when punching on, not so much (for me) otherwise. I think I just missed the boat with them. The Uber home after the gig is gonna be killer! 🤣