Ticketmaster’s Andrew Parsons appears before MPs
Ticketmaster’s UK chief has rejected claims that the company deploys ‘dynamic pricing’ in a parliamentary hearing on the controversial sales model.
Andrew Parsons, Ticketmaster UK’s managing director, appeared before parliamentarians after initially rejecting a summons to give evidence to their ‘Rip-off Britain: Dynamic pricing and consumer protection’ hearing. Questioned by the Business and Trade Committee, Parsons discussed aspects of Ticketmaster’s pricing strategy, but steered clear of the Oasis on-sale as it is the subject of a Competitions and Markets Authority (CMA) investigation.
Parsons rejected committee chairman Liam Byrne’s accusations that Ticketmaster raise prices after users have already added secured tickets. Byrne cited a Harry Styles fan who had seen their ticket price jump from £155 to more than £380 when they reached the checkout.
“It didn’t change,” Parsons responded. “I’m happy to explain to you how and why. Many instances where dynamic pricing has been referred to relate to technology which is in some way reacting to market, surging on demand, driving tickets up relative to the amounts of traffic that there might be on the site.
“We can be quite clear that is not how the Ticketmaster website operates. We don’t change prices in any automated or algorithmic way. Prices are set in advance with event organisers and their teams at the prices that they want them to be made available.”
Parsons added: “I think in certain instances, because of that fact some of the cheaper tickets which may be available will inevitably sell through most quickly, meaning the tickets fans see at a later point will be at a higher price, which can give the illusion that those tickets have changed price.
“But they have not, we can be very clear that there’s no technology that’s driving any price change, and the price that you see on the Ticketmaster website is the price that the event organiser wanted that to be, including all fees, and that’s the only price that we will ever display.” Watch the evidence session here.
Artists decide event prices
Parsons reiterated Ticketmaster’s claim that it is artists and event organisers who determines how much tickets will cost. He added that raising prices can be used as a method of constraining demand.
“Where differing price tiers [are] made available, that’s a choice of the event organiser,” Parsons said. “Selling a small amount of tickets at a higher-priced tier seems fairly reasonable.
“We work closely with event organisers to be able sell tickets at the prices that they’ve determined. A lot of thought goes into it, and I think that in the main they are very fairly priced.
“If we’re not able to [capture] that value, which the artist is doing in those instances, then that money is just going to go, and the tickets are going to be captured and gobbled up by touts.”
MP calls for Live Nation’s dominance
During the session, committee member Charlie Maynard MP urged the CMA to launch a separate investigation into Ticketmaster’s owner, Live Nation, and its “dominant market share”. Live Nation is the subject of an antitrust investigation in the US over its domination of that market.
However, Parsons told the committee Ticketmaster and Live Nation “have clear divides between how we operate on a daily basis”. He added that the UK ticketing market was “as competitive as any market in the world”.
Others quizzed during the oral evidence session included representatives from Citizens Advice, Which?, UKHospitality, and the Football Supporters Association.
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