Andrew Lloyd Webber | Photo by Tracey Nolan from Toronto, Canada, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Broadway Legend Andrew Lloyd Webber Calls Dynamic Pricing ‘Racketeering’
The infamous ticketing practice known as “dynamic pricing” has been the talk of the live event industry over the past year. Following the Oasis ticket debacle in the UK — and the duo’s promise to not use the practice for North American shows — composer Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber is calling out dynamic pricing, condemning it as “racketeering.”
Lloyd Webber, known for hit musicals like “The Phantom of the Opera,” “Cats,” and “The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat,” was asked by The Sunday Times magazine if dynamic pricing would potentially be used for theatre tickets. He said that he doesn’t think theatres “should be in the business of trying to push prices up.”
“You need to break even, but I don’t like making theatre inaccessible,” Webber told the publication. “Dynamic pricing is racketeering, really — it’s completely wrong.”
Oasis and its management were slammed for messy ticket sales in the UK and Ireland for the use of dynamic pricing. Fans were met with tickets that were 3-4x the advertised “face value” price, which was chalked-up to the fact that the tickets were “in demand.” While Oasis blamed Ticketmaster and its management for the surged prices, multiple dates were announced across Ireland and the UK once the band saw fans had committed to the surged ticket prices and knew there was further interest among fans.
For the newly-announced dates, Oasis revealed that they do not intend to use so-called “dynamic” pricing for the events, following widespread controversy over the practice for the first announced leg.
| READ: Oasis Tour Promoters, Ticket Bosses Receive £14.8M for 2023 |
“Ticketmaster’s dynamic pricing model will not be applied to the forthcoming sale of tickets to Oasis concerts in North America,” the band shared in a post on X. “It is widely accepted that dynamic pricing remains a useful tool to combat ticket touting and keep prices for a significant proportion of fans lower than the market rate and thus more affordable.”
“But, when unprecedented ticket demand (where the entire tour could be sold many times over at the moment tickets go on sale) is combined with technology that cannot cope with that demand, it becomes less effective and can lead to an unacceptable experience for fans,” the post continued. “We have made this decision for the North America tour to avoid a repeat.
Iron Maiden also revealed they would not use dynamic pricing on tour. Their 2025 massive world tour, dubbed “Run For Your Lives,” will see the group perform hits from their first nine albums, coinciding with their 50th anniversary.
The practice of dynamic pricing is not new – though its use has been more rare abroad than in the United States. While its supporters argue that such practices discourage “scalping” by making it harder for people to turn a profit by reselling tickets, it has drawn extreme backlash from fans, who often feel ripped off by the very bands they are trying to see.
Oasis and Iron Maiden fans are not alone; concertgoers across all genres have felt the burn of dynamic pricing. Complaints from fans across all genres have made headlines over the past year — from Green Day and Sleep Token to Sabrina Carpenter and Olivia Rodrigo.
