The mayor of Trowbridge was among hundreds of thousands of Oasis fans who fell foul of dynamic pricing as he tried to buy tickets for the group’s reunion tour concerts.
Oasis and Ticketmaster are both facing backlash after fans were forced to fork out more than double the cost of a ticket to see the rock band's reunion.
Cllr Stephen Cooper tried to book tickets on Saturday for the concert in Manchester and found the price soaring dramatically as he queued online.
Cllr Cooper said: “I’d last seen Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds at the Manchester Arena in May 2018 when they performed there after the venue reopened in the wake of the Ariana Grande concert bombing a year before.
“The almost visceral sight and sound of the capacity 21,000 crowd all standing and singing “Don’t look back in anger” will stay with me for a very long time.
“It was an incredibly emotional experience as the people of Manchester came together with one of their own to show soul, solidarity, and pride in their city.
“Moving on to today, I really wanted to see a reformed Oasis perform in their hometown, but it was not to be.
He continued: “After eight hours or so, I’d got as far as being number 218,432 in the queue when reports started coming through from those ahead of me about the price hike that had taken place.
“I, like everyone else, had joined the queue for tickets for Heaton Park in the understanding that they were all meant to be sold at a flat rate of £150.
“This was the quoted price when we’d joined the queue at 9am last Saturday morning, but between joining the queue and getting as far as I had some eight hours later, this price had magically risen to £355.20, apparently as tickets were now considered to be in ‘high demand’.”
The UK's competition watchdog has since announced it will launch an investigation into Ticketmaster over the sale of Oasis tickets at the weekend.
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The system led the prices for many tickets to shoot up by more than £200 during the day after they went on sale on Saturday, leaving some fans out of pocket and others forced to give up.
Cllr Cooper added: “I know we live in a free-market economy and the law of supply and demand applies, but honestly, is this level of price hike ethical?
“At this point, I left the queue and later watched their Wembley concert from 2000 on Sky Arts! That’s as close as I’ll get to Oasis for the foreseeable future.”
According to an ITV report Ticketmaster said it does not set prices, and has shared a link to its website where it says costs can be “fixed or market-based”.
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