TJ Chambers
(c) dreamtime
In the past, I’ve suggested that ‘ticketing is a bad-news business’ that no-one notices when it works and hundreds or a hundred thousand successfully gain admittance to their chosen event and experience the dramatic spectacle of live entertainment or sporting excellence, after all how difficult can ticketing be.
But when ticketing frustrates because of that same linkage to the personally transformative immersive emotion released at events, and it fails to deliver, it can then quickly become a bitter experience for all.
The unsatisfactory ticket purchase UI and queuing process, the (ever-increasing) price of tickets, the various associated service fees (to cover off the ‘guilty-secret’ of ticketing i.e. the rebates, commissions and kickbacks) and where demand exceeds the supply of tickets – everyone wants to sit in the best seats at the lowest possible prices and that’s just not architecturally possible.
But the ticketing industry isn’t primarily concerned with its end-user, the attendee, customer, fan, patron, or supporter. No, first and foremost it’s there to ensure the event Right Owners and ticket-inventory suppliers get paid.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t always get that right either.
***
A Bot, Tout, Or Not?
Despite the various anti-bot technologies apparently employed during the Oasis Reunion onsale on 31st August 2024 it would appear from numerous media reports over the last week (NME, The BBC, The Guardian, Billboard, Ticketing Business News, IQ Magazine among others) that ‘thousands’ of ticket-buyers were actually bots or touts, and so have now been informed by email that their purchases have been cancelled.
Of course, it’s not as clear as all that with many customers claiming their innocence, that they were not an automated ticket-acquirer, and that they didn’t attempt to cheat the onsale process separately blighted with multi-hour wait times, frozen event description pages, or failed transactions, and the deployment of surge-pricing – which subsequently attracted the attention of the CMA (https://www.gov.uk/cma-cases/ticketmaster-consumer-protection-case), the UK Parliament Business And Trade Committee (https://committees.parliament.uk/work/8872/ripoff-britain-dynamic-pricing-and-consumer-protection/publications/), and has also been noted by the UK Government Dept. for Business and Trade and the Dept. for Culture, Media and Sport in their consultation on live event ticketing (https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/putting-fans-first-consultation-on-the-resale-of-live-events-tickets/putting-fans-first-consultation-on-the-resale-of-live-events-tickets-html).
***
Thousands of Oasis tickets are now being cancelled by Ticketmaster in bot crackdown – but many fans are unhappy, Max Pilley, 7th February 2025 – https://www.nme.com/news/music/thousands-of-oasis-tickets-are-now-being-cancelled-by-ticketmaster-in-bot-crackdown-but-many-fans-are-unhappy-3836142
Oasis fans see tickets cancelled over ‘bots’ claim, Evie Lake, 8th February 2025 – https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c62q1wynqlvo
Dreams ‘crushed’ as Ticketmaster cancels fans’ Oasis ’25 tickets, Nadeem Badshah, 8th February 2025 – https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/feb/08/dreams-crushed-as-ticketmaster-cancels-fans-oasis-25-tickets
Oasis Fans Claim Tickets Have Been Cancelled Amid Ticketmaster’s Crackdown on Bots and Resellers, Thomas Smith, 10th February 2025 – https://www.billboard.com/music/rock/oasis-ticketmaster-cancelled-bots-resale-1235897167/
Ticketmaster cancels fans’ tickets to Oasis concerts, Owen Lloyd, 10th February 2025 – https://www.theticketingbusiness.com/2025/02/10/ticketmaster-cancels-fans-tickets-to-oasis-concerts/
Oasis tickets cancelled over suspected bot use, James Hanley, 10th February 2025 – https://www.iq-mag.net/2025/02/oasis-tickets-cancelled-over-suspected-bot-use/
***
Guilty until proven innocent
So, you would have thought that for such a high-profile and already notorious event, that there would had been an abundance of care, with numerous checks and superior customer service applied before any cancellation of tickets occurred.
You know, professionally and politely, putting the customer first. Listening more than you talk, alleviating any point of confusion, swiftly and fairly resolving any issues, whilst providing more than the customer needs. All those simple ways to ensure the delivery of exceptional customer service.
Except this is the ticketing industry. The supply-side orientated business sector that ‘loves’ the consumer so long as they continue to buy tickets weeks, months, or years in advance, for ever-increasing prices, with few rights for exchange, refunds or resale.
So, they’re informed via an email that they have breached the T&Cs of the onsale – ‘Tickets sold in breach of the terms and conditions will be cancelled by the promoters.’
But you can appeal – ‘For ticket purchasers who believe they have had tickets refunded in error, refer to the email sent by the relevant agent when informed.’
***
How to spot a bot
To limit the effectiveness of scalpers and bots during an onsale the ticketing platforms operate a number of technical and operational solutions.
These range from the implementation of ticket buying limits, typically capped for a single transaction per credit or debit card, or for purchases at a single address/postcode.
There is also the advance verification of ticket buyers with pre-registration to a fan club, supporter association, or membership scheme, or other closed-user group e.g. preferred credit card, or mobile operator database.
A widely used method to combat ticket bots is the implementation of CAPTCHA (Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart) which is designed to differentiate between human users and automated bots by presenting challenges that are easy for humans to solve but difficult for machines.
More sophisticated anti-bot technology also utilises real-time intervention, behavioural analysis (of mouse movements, keystrokes, and browsing behaviour), shared threat intelligence (based on the identification of known bot signatures and the blocking of known scalper IP addresses) or more bluntly against anyone using VPN (Virtual Private Network) software on their device.
Also, anyone who timed out from the transactional process and then logs on again more than once, or has several tabs open on the same site, is typically treated as a bot.
The deliberate lack of transparency with regards to what anti-bot measures are actually utilised is an attempt to uninform the sophisticated tech-criminals who profit from unauthorised resale.
But in the original Oasis event T&Cs it stated, ‘all ticket sales data will be manually forensically examined’, so the question some are asking is how truly effective these anti-bot technologies are if they can’t differentiate between fans and machines, and it relies upon manual interpretation.
Further IQ Magazine reported ‘that tickets will only be cancelled if the promoter and band management are completely convinced that the buyer is not a genuine customer, with multiple layers of checks before people were contacted’.
Again, these checks were obviously insufficiently applied for those customers now having to appeal in order to get their tickets back, but despite this the event organisers claim, ‘there is confidence the crackdown has been carried out correctly’.
***
Elsewhere Liam Gallagher responded on X (formerly Twitter) to a query ‘Liam what do you think of the ticket situation? Thinking fans are bots and getting their money returned?’ with, ‘I don’t make the rules. We’re trying to do the right thing. It is what it is, I’m the singer. Get off my case.’
https://twitter.com/liamgallagher/status/1888838153500307469
***
And in other news … when I was more regularly travelling internationally on behalf of various Public Companies seeking to develop their global reach, whilst attempting to navigate local cultural and regulatory challenges, and also being mindful of the commercial practicalities of deal-making, there were two pieces of legislation, the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act 1977 (FCPA) (https://www.sec.gov/enforcement/foreign-corrupt-practices-act), and the U.K. Bribery Act 2010 (https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/23/contents) that were guiderails for behaviour, that the Internal Audit teams regularly ensured we were both familiarised and compliant with.
I was therefore surprised, but not, given the lurch towards free-market demagoguery and venal self-interest, that President Trump has apparently ordered the U.S. Department of Justice to halt the enforcement of the FCPA, the anti-corruption law that bars Americans from bribing foreign government officials to win business (Donald Trump to halt enforcement of law banning bribery of foreign officials – Steff Chávez + Stefania Palma, 11th February 2024 https://www.ft.com/content/f880bfc3-6069-427b-9873-51255d4e0b8c).
So being flippant, I guess this means that rebates, commissions, kickbacks, exotic foreign holidays, prostitutes, drugs and rock n’roll is once again a legit business practice. And that mainstream American corporations can fully adopt the live music model. (Insert wink emoji 😉.)
One day I should tell you a story about the Sochi Winter Olympics ticketing tender process (‘… let’s take this conversation offline, so there is no trace, like after the first snows of winter’), or of the Spanish concert promoter with three mobile-phones (‘…for the wife, for the girlfriends, and for business’), who could provide receipts for everything required backstage, or of a very pleasant dinner with some spooks in Bratislava. Or maybe not.
***
Until the next time.
TJ_Chambers 