Comment: Dynamic pricing jeopardizes artists’ relationships with their most important fans

A big one the Oasis band that made a comeback of scale throughout the fall announced on Monday that dynamic pricing will not be used in ticket sales for the shows on its American tour.

Fans are therefore allowed to buy their tickets at the pre-announced price, no matter how many willing buyers there are.

Dynamic pricing attracted a lot of criticism earlier in the fall in Britain, where ticket prices for the band’s return tour rose to astronomical numbers in some places.

Dynamic pricing has become a hot topic in the live music industry. Its meaning has been questioned, because the pricing model commonly used in the tourism industry does not seem to be suitable for the sale of concert tickets.

In the sale of hotel stays and plane tickets, it is logical that the prices are low in the off-season and high when there are more vacationers. Big stadium gigs by very popular artists are, on the other hand, rare events that are not started unless there are good reasons to expect high demand.

However, ticket sales companies and promoters support dynamic pricing because they want to eradicate the activity of wild ticket trocars. Through them, the price of a ticket purchased at a fixed price can rise even higher than in dynamic pricing.

in Britain and in Finland, dynamic pricing has not been welcomed by artists’ fans. Artists have also noticed it.

British consumer authorities launched an investigation into the appropriateness of Oasis ticket pricing. Oasis first dismissed the whole dynamic pricing and shifted the responsibility to their managers, and now the whole dynamic pricing has been forgotten.

Oasis Managers announced that the American tour does not want to repeat the problems that arose in Britain and Ireland and that dynamic pricing has led to “unacceptable experiences” among fans.

Also next spring, the favorite band of the 1990s, Supergrass, which is returning to the public in Britain, announced that dynamic pricing will not be used for its tour shows, and in Finland, Ultra Bra wanted tickets for its stadium concerts next summer to be sold without dynamic pricing.

Dynamic artists suffer the most from pricing problems. With more expensive tickets, the artist gets more money, of course. but at the same time it endangers an important capital, i.e. a loyal fan base, who come to gigs even when the demand is quieter.

Dynamic pricing would also bring more money to the ticket company, but the ticket company does not have fans and does not need them, because it needs paying customers. In the end, however, the ticket company also needs artists, and therefore the atmosphere in the world of ticket sales may be calming down.