I've made thousands touting Oasis tickets and I don't feel guilty

Wales Online

14 hours ago

I've made thousands touting Oasis tickets and I don't feel guilty
'It is purely a middle-class problem that you can't go and see a band you like,' the tout told us
Oasis frontman Liam Gallagher
(Image: WireImage )
A tout has boasted of profiting thousands from flogging Oasis tickets at inflated prices — without a single pang of guilt. Since the Britpop legends' reunion tour was announced last year, there has been a feverish clamour for tickets.
Touts, of course, have not hesitated to cash in, many of them demanding exorbitant figures from fans desperate to see the beloved rockers. One Welsh tout agreed to speak to WalesOnline on the condition of anonymity, revealing the amount he's raked in from Oasis' comeback and his justifications for his "side hustle".
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The tout (we'll call him Jim) has sold 24 tickets for the tour, which kicked off on Friday at Cardiff's Principality Stadium. You can read our coverage of the night here.
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Jim is, to put it mildly, not a charmer. When we ask how much he has been selling Oasis tickets for, he brands the seemingly straightforward question "stupid", adding: "It depends on when you sell them, where the tickets are and who you're selling them to."
After some coaxing, he explains he bought the 24 tickets in the initial sale, spending between £75 and £200 on each, and then made a total profit of around £5,000, using resale websites like StubHub and Viagogo.
"The process to sell them on is fairly straightforward," says Jim. "Just stick them on a website and people buy them, or stick a message into a WhatsApp group and people will reply."
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Does he not feel guilty? "Not at all. We live in a capitalist society. I am not taking away anything anyone needs to survive — these tickets are a luxury."
He adds: "Do you think supermarkets feel bad ripping off farmers for produce and then charging us extortionate prices for things we cannot live without?"
In news that is unlikely to shock you, Jim does not think legislation is needed to clamp down on touting. He tells us: "It is purely a middle-class problem that you can't go and see a band you like. I think [legislation] is a complete waste of time."
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But aren't people like Jim pricing working-class people out of culture by hoovering up tickets and charging huge amounts? "Just supply and demand," he replies. "I'm priced out of a business-class flight because I can't afford it."
Jim does not think he is so different to Ticketmaster, which came under fire for the original Oasis sale in which standard standing tickets went from being advertised at £135 plus fees to being re-labelled "in demand" and costing £355 plus fees.
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) later said Ticketmaster may have breached consumer protection law by selling "platinum" tickets for almost 2.5 times the standard price without explaining they carried no extra benefits.
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After the watchdog ordered Ticketmaster to change the way it labels tickets, the US firm said it "welcomed the CMA's input".
Ticketmaster's UK director Andrew Parsons told MPs earlier this year: "We don't change prices in any automated or algorithmic way."
Jim claims: "Ticketmaster's 'dynamic pricing' is no different from what I did. So much criticism on me making a few quid as a side hustle when Ticketmaster can say tickets are £200 then sell them for £400 after people were queueing [online] for four hours."
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How much does Jim make from touting in a year? He declines to answer, though he says the aim is always to double his investment. His biggest return on a ticket has been 1,850%.
Touting is not Jim's main income stream, though he says: "It did help while I was unemployed for a number of months due to the s*** job market."
He has not thought about quitting his job and living off touting because "it's too unpredictable and there's no real satisfaction".
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Jim is not worried by the UK Government's plans to curb bulk-buying of tickets for profit by capping the price of resale tickets.
The proposed cap — which could be anywhere from face value to 30% higher — would apply to tickets across the live events industry from sport and music to stand-up and theatre.
"I'm not concerned," says Jim. "If the Government cracks down I'll just stop doing it. It's a side hustle, just a nice profit on the side."
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According to analysis by the CMA, tickets sold on the resale market are typically marked up by more than 50%. Fans of musicians including Taylor Swift have complained of gig tickets being listed online for thousands of pounds just minutes after the initial sale ended.
Government ministers have proposed a limit on the number of tickets that resellers can offer, or the number they can buy in the original sale. They are also considering action on dynamic pricing.
Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy said earlier this year: "We are taking action to strengthen consumer protections, stop fans getting ripped off and ensure money spent on tickets goes back into our incredible live events sector, instead of into the pockets of greedy touts."