Speaker 1: Disneys Cafe is the place to put us. Smile on
your face. Judy and the crew will take care of you,
bring your appetite and treat your taste. Buzzfry Disney's Cafe
is always a winning choice. Breakfast, lunch or supper. Dizzne's
Cafe at eight sixty Elm Street in downtown Manchester. Dine in,
takeout or make a reservation. Call six oh three, six
oh six two five three two, Eat, drink and be
happy Dizzne's Cafe.
Speaker 2: You are listening to WMNHLP ninety five point three FM,
broadcasting from the top of one thousand Elm Streets. Our
studios are located at one nineteen Canal Street and licensed
to Manchester Public Television Service in Manchester, New Hampshire.
Speaker 3: Contact us by email at wm NH nine five three
at gmail dot com, or through our website at wmnhradio
dot org.
Speaker 4: It's nine o'clock.
Speaker 5: I am the one who does it all. Take the
grand and don't take the ball dull men from you.
I'm right all day, most of the night. Listen to me.
I'm always right out.
Speaker 6: Take your fans from you.
Speaker 5: It woo is showing CEO you think like a fan.
The whole crazy.
Speaker 4: Smoke smells like sid.
Speaker 5: He just thinks that all lia miss selfish self ups
or selfish, self centered, selfish self ups or selfish sound center.
You know, so, I don't can want to think of me.
I'm the best that you will see. I don't need
any funding giving credit, no way, I see everything anyways.
Everyone knows they're not cocky.
Speaker 6: You show what shows little netfuck go godmt.
Speaker 5: I'm no radio crazy smoke crying again, he does things
that all liar miss selfish self fox or self ash
self censor, selfish self fox or self ast self censors. Well,
I can't rap about me.
Speaker 4: Don't give a crap what you say.
Speaker 5: Put me to sleep with me or show stop feed
me or cry.
Speaker 6: Selfish selfo sort, selfish self center, selfish self absort, selfish
self senator, selfish, selfabsor selfish self senator, selfish south bosor
selfish self centator.
Speaker 1: I guess that's it.
Speaker 4: I'm just scared of being on my.
Speaker 1: I can't rest acts that sound when you present you're
sleeping but you're stocking.
Speaker 4: Someone tell me the truth is really I ord know
if I'm playing second best?
Speaker 7: Is it best day? If I go home.
Speaker 8: Why he can't he be seen if you don't.
Speaker 7: Even care the head I'm so stuck and I don't way,
there's no one the baby.
Speaker 8: I'm just too trying to let you know.
Speaker 7: I want to give you my time, gonna drive you home,
and you need to say now days I Cass, I
think they maybe in these days, I'm the best days.
Speaker 8: I don't have in my.
Speaker 9: Wive.
Speaker 4: These days are the best days I don't have.
Speaker 7: Give me a reason why I feel so light tonight
cause it scares me, this thing that I might have
read him for nothing at all.
Speaker 4: God, it dust on.
Speaker 8: My shoes, just to prove I can be the man
who's in your parents I don't need.
Speaker 7: And I clean my moly dreaming up your lips.
Speaker 8: You know your sins for sadness.
Speaker 7: Is a kurd by being in physical Pleaaby, I'm just
too trying to let you know. I want to give
you a.
Speaker 8: Lot of mine, So I'm going to drive you home.
I need to say it now because I can't. I
have the baby.
Speaker 4: These days of the best days, I will only really.
Speaker 8: Scared of me.
Speaker 7: Maybe I can be just a little hair strong. I've
never had a look best gave me Peason, but these
as the best days. Haven't have that maybe understood it's
hard to let you know. I'm want to give you
on to bite.
Speaker 8: I'm going to drive you.
Speaker 7: I'm you want to say it now because I can't
a thing the Baby Days on the Firsday's Albill be
scant bear. Maybe I can be just a little ashto
I've never let that's bb a reason to be in
the days and it says I'm the Firsday's album.
Speaker 8: Maybe I'm too excited.
Speaker 4: When it can't be one, But So'm gonna time you.
Speaker 8: I need to see it now because I can'st not
bigthing mad maybe, but thy days on the Thursdays I
will not be scant. Maybe I can be just a
little ash I've never had a pass reason the mate
any day.
Speaker 4: S the Beasty's album by Honest to.
Speaker 8: Tell me that no what A can do a right?
You want to see nose?
Speaker 7: I can't go big? Maybe best days out having the.
Speaker 8: Baby just stuck.
Speaker 5: Reasonlieve you're listening to w U M.
Speaker 10: N H ninety.
Speaker 6: Command God, don't get subprime Leader Maxwell coming.
Speaker 4: Good morning, everybody, welcome, here we go. It is that
time again. Matt Connorton Unleashed and we are live from
the studios of WMNH ninety five point three FM here
in glorious Manchester, New Hampshire, on Canal Street. Welcome everybody.
Today is Saturday, September seven, twenty twenty four. I am
flying solo this morning. Jenny is at home resting up,
but she'll be back next week. And I'll speaking of
next week, well we'll come back to that. But something
pretty cool involving Jenny happening next Saturdayay, so we'll mention
that in a moment, very very proud of her. It
involves her artwork. Spoiler alert. We might have mentioned it
last last week, but it's it's it's official. I dropped
off the painting. Well, I'm giving all these hints, I
might as well say it. So one week from today,
Jenny's art will be showing at the Mosaic Art Collective.
It's already there. I dropped the painting off on Thursday,
and it's actually a personal favorite of mine. But that
will be Let's see, I've got the event pulled up here.
Let's we'll go ahead and talk about this and then
I'll tell you what we have lined up for a
two days show. Where did it go? Where did it go?
I had it pulled up and I think I accidentally
closed that tab. That figures well, anyway, we'll we'll come
back to it. But this, let's see, it's from four
to eight pm on Saturday, September fourteenth at the Mosaic
Art Collective. It's actually in the Daily Mirror building right
on Hanover Street. Very easy to find, and it's funny.
There's a a couple of things happening there. Uh next week,
because the other thing that's going on Friday the thirteenth
is John Poussett Dart is going to be playing live
at the Rex Theater and that relates to today's show
because he is going to be calling in at ten
am to open the second hour of this week's Matt
Connorton Unleashed to talk about that. So we have John
Bossett Dart coming on in the second hour, and then
in the third hour we have Terry Almquist who will
be with us live in studio from Wellness Hot Yoga,
And I'm very excited to have her on the show
because I've only known her for a short time, but
she's got an amazing backstory, just such a fascinating person.
To speak with, so she'll be on with us too.
But yeah, so we've got plenty to do, plenty to do.
Like I said, I am flying solo today, so I'll
go ahea and give out the studio line if anyone
does want to join. We've got some interesting things to
discuss in the first hour. But the studio line is
opened six oh three two five six seven. Six oh
three two five six seven. Of course you can also
you can always interact into Opine in the Facebook live
chat or or anywhere you know. If you go to
Matt connorton dot com slash live, it gives you all
kinds of options for how you can interact with the
program while we are live, or even when we're not
live if you just want to reach out in contact us.
But the studio line is open six three two five
six seven. Especially by the way, if you have any
questions for John Poussett Dart, who is going to be
joining us at the top of the hour at ten am.
I've always it's funny, so I kind of went down
the rabbit hole last night with his music as I
was preparing for today's show, because I've never been I'd
never really listened to much of him. I'd always been
aware of him. I remember back this goes back quite
a ways, but when I was working at Strawberries, for
those of you who remember Strawberries, the music store, I was.
I started, uh, well, for a long time, I bounced around,
but I worked at the location in Well, the first
store that I ever actually managed for the company Wasn't
Conquered New Hampshire on Laet and wrote, And I remember
we always had Possett Dart Band CDs and stock and
people would come in and buy them. But I'd never actually,
you know, because he kind of this is where this area,
you know, sort of the Boston area. I mean, this
is Manchester, but obviously we're you know, we're only forty
five minutes north. You know, this is kind of where
he first became famous. So so he's touring around and
he'll be here, Like I said, he's got a bunch
of tour dates, but he will be here on Friday
the thirteenth, So he's going to join us to talk
about that. But I kind of was exploring his music,
and you know, a couple of the songs from Posset
Dart Band, you know, from I don't know, early seventies,
like seventy three, seventy four around there. I was like, oh, yeah,
I've heard this song. I definitely know this song. But
he also I was playing some of his recent because
he continues to as a solo artist, he continues to
create music, and some of his recent stuff is just
so interesting. We'll talk about it when he calls. I
don't know how much time he has to spend with us,
but I have some questions for him. But it might
be a little bit of a curve because I'm sure
that when he does radio interviews, people want to talk
to him about Poose at Dart Band, where he started,
and you know, of course we'll do that and we'll
talk about the show coming up, but you know, because
obviously the purpose is to promote that. But I have
some questions for him too about his more recent material
that I find quite fascinating. He's he's got a great
voice and hell of a guitar player, my goodness. So anyway,
so that'll be coming up at ten am. And like
I said, third hour, we have Terry Almquist. For the
first hour. We have some music news, music industry news
to discuss. You know, I love this stuff. I'm a
music industry nerd, and I do some things in the industry,
and I have for a long time. But we were
talking last week. I think it was last week. Was
it last week or the week before? I have to
be honest with you, It all blurts together, but no,
I think it was last week. We were talking about
Oasis and this debacle. We have an update on this well,
and it relates to another issue happening in the music industry.
Speaker 11: But so.
Speaker 4: Oasis tickets went on sale. It's the first time they're
touring in fifteen years. The Gallagher brothers loll. I'm sorry,
not loll Noel and Liam. I do that once in
a while. I create amalgams of words. I combined Noel
and Liam into loll. I'll just call them loll. So
Lowell actually managed to stop arguing enough to say, let's
go make some money. That's how the uh, that's how
people who are cynical about it are talking about it.
Speaker 11: Right.
Speaker 4: Oh, this is just a money grab Oasis is. They're
coming for our cash. They just want to make some money. Now,
that's not how I think about it necessarily. I mean again,
I do understand that that's very often a purpose of
doing this, But but I also am a fan of Oasis.
Although it's funny so back in the day, back in
the nineties when Wonderwall was on the radio every five minutes,
I actually really liked it that Wonderwall. I thought was
such a great song, and I still think it's a
great song. But if I hear it now, I'm like, eh,
I'm over it. I was over it a long time ago.
Acquiesce is my favorite Oasis song, which was actually a
B side. But anyway, I'm I think it's cool. I mean,
I'm not gonna go spend gobs of money. I don't
know if they've even put any US tour dates on sale.
I know they've got a bunch of UK dates, but
you know, I'm not gonna go see them because I
don't want to pay all that money and it's going
to be expensive. It already is expensive because tickets went
on sale in the UK, and that's what set off
this whole controversy around the ticket sales themselves. But anyway,
so Oasis, no matter how you feel about them, love them,
hate them, They're kind of polarizing. I've always been a fan,
but I also understand and again as someone who's done
things in the industry. I have kind of a you know,
I can look at it both as a fan and
as a business. I can see it from both perspectives.
So yeah, maybe it is a money grab. I don't,
you know, but it's a business. You got to make money, right,
you got to make a living. You know, these guys
probably spend a lot. They just seem well, at least
Liam does. Probably spend a lot. Noel always struck me
as the more down to earth of the two, but
I'm sure Liam has quite the lifestyle anyway. But put
all that aside, regardless of how you feel about it.
So we were talking on the show last week about
tickets went on sale and the websites were crashing. I
say websites plural because obviously, you know Ticketmaster, which is
owned by Live Nation. They put the tickets on sale,
nobody could get them because the site kept crashing, but
also the secondary sites were crashing, and then Oasis's management
put out a statement saying, actually, don't even buy these
tickets on secondary sites because those will be canceled. Those
are not authorized. And we got into this a little
bit last week Jenny and I talking about how you know,
you've got what a big tour like this goes on sale,
so you've got Ticketmaster, which sells the tickets. But very
often what happens is for I think a lot of
people are probably pretty savvy to this already. But the
reason that something can go on sale and then it
sells out like immediately, I'm sure people probably assume, well,
that's because of the Internet. You know, that didn't happen
pre Internet. For those of us who are enough to remember,
you know, when you would have to actually go and
stand in line somewhere to buy tickets. But you know,
things would sell out quickly, which is why if it
was a big tour that you really wanted to see,
you'd have to go and stand in line, you know,
like Jenny has told stories about, you know her, I
think her and her mom standing in line for Prince
tickets and like camping out overnight or something, or being
there for hours when Prince was touring. But then so
the Internet comes along, for lack of a better way
of putting it, and everything's available online, so things sell
out instantly. And yes, because in theory, you know, thousands, tens,
hundreds of thousands, potentially millions of people can go and
try to buy these tickets immediately once they go online
in the digital age, so to speak. But there's another
element to that. Very often these tickets are bought up
by scalpers. And I don't mean when I say scalper,
I don't mean the guy standing out in front of
the venue trying to sell you a ticket to a
sold out show because the show has sold out, but
this random guy has tickets that he's willing to sell
you at a premium cash only. I mean scalpers, these services,
these ticketing sites that buy in bulk these tickets and
then resell them at a profit. That goes on all
the time. There are those who have tried to push
back on it, trying to find ways to prevent that
from happening, but it still goes on. And then, of
course you've also got the other element of Ticketmaster itself.
Some people think that, for example, the Live Nation Ticketmaster
merger never should have been approved by the government. That
gets into a whole other thing. So, you know, a
lot of people are dissatisfied with Ticketmaster itself as any
remember back in the day again this was yeah, this
must have been in the nineties or early two thousands
when Pearl Jam was kind of the first to say, hey,
we don't even want to deal with Ticketmaster anymore. We
don't like the way they do business, we don't like
the way the fans are kind of getting the shaft.
And so they started working with smaller you know, in
various markets around the country. They started working with these
smaller market ticketing agencies, which didn't really work out that great,
and in the end pearl Jam had to give in,
had to capitulate and go back to working with Ticketmaster.
It's just the reality of it. So you've got all
of that, and then you've got this new element. And
this we did not talk about last week, but again
it is part of this whole story with Oasis and
these tickets is the dynamic pricing. Now, for those of
you who don't know, you may have heard the term,
some of you will know, some of you will not
know what this is. But dynamic pricing is this concept where, well,
you know, basic free market economics, right, supply and demand.
When supplies low, demand is high, things cost more money. Well,
this concept has been applied to tickets and Ticketmaster uses it.
Where Okay, so if demand is high for a show
and supply is low, only so many tickets available, those
tickets will automatically increase in price. There's even been who
was it. There was a fast food restaurant chain that
tried to do this, and I want to say it
was Wendy's. They either tried it in some of their
locations or they were testing it in maybe one location
and they were thinking about rolling it out nationally or something.
I don't remember all the details, but they tried to
do some sort of dynamic pricing concept where at busy
time of day the food would cost more, but I
think they probably pulled the plug on that pretty quickly.
I think it was Wendy's who tried to do this.
But anyway, so this has been done with Ticketmaster, and
that factors into the Oasis debacle, as it were, because
now Ticketmaster is being investigated about the dynamic pricing. Now,
if you're a ticket buyer, you may not like this
very much. You might long for the days when tickets
would go on sale and you know what the price
is and you just go and you buy the tickets
at the price that you're expecting them to be because
that's what they're announced at, and that that is over,
you know. I mean, if you're buying tickets to a
smaller sh like, for example, if you're buying tickets to
go see John Posse at Dart at the Rex Theater
on Friday night. I don't think those prices are going
to change, right, you know. But but when your ticketmaster
and you can afford all this technology to control the
prices and everything, you know, you can do whatever you want.
I mean Ticketmaster, it is truly a monopoly. They can
do whatever they want. But that doesn't mean that they
can do whatever they want without some consequences. So let's
look at this again, the newest wrinkle in the What
did I say? I'm calling them loll Loll Gallagher. I
should if you're just joining us, I should clarify it's
an amalgam of Nol and Liam because apparently I have
difficulty say nol and Liam, so it's easier to just
say loll. They are almost indistinguishable in terms of I mean,
they don't look exactly alike, but if you listen to
an interview with them. You know what's funny about Oasis
back in the nineties when they first got big, that
first album definitely maybe really blew up. I remember seeing
interviews with them on MTV, and MTV would actually they
would actually subtitle the interviews. Obviously the Gallaghers were speaking
English in the interviews, but their accents were such that
you almost couldn't understand them, so emptview would actually subtitle
the interviews. It was funny. And I don't know if
they were doing it to be funny or kind of
doing it to be funny, but it was funny. They
can be difficult to understand. By the way, Noel Gallagher
is very funny too. He's got it. I don't think
Liam's particularly funny, but Noel has a very dry sense
of humor that I like anyway. Okay, so here's the
newest wrinkle, and this is from Music Businessworldwide dot Com.
UK competition regulator launches investigation into Ticketmaster over Oasis ticket sale.
So now the government's involved, says here. The UK's Competition
and Markets Authority CMA has launched an investigation in the
Live Nation owned ticketing giant Ticketmaster. The reason for the
investigation last Saturday is on sale for Oasis' twenty twenty
five UK Actually, what was the date on this article?
September fifth, Okay, so it is referring to last Saturday.
So it's referring to the on sale that happened one
week ago for Oasis' twenty twenty five UK and Ireland
Stadium tour, including quote how so called dynamic pricing may
have been used unquote, the CMA said in a statement
on September five. The Competition watchdog says the plans to
scrutinize quote excuse me, whether the sale of Oasis tickets
by Ticketmaster may have reached consumer protection law unquote, because again,
like I was saying, not everyone thinks that the dynamic
pricing is right or ethical. And I'm not saying that
I have a problem with it. I'm just saying, you know, well,
apparently it's people in government who are saying, we're not
sure that this is the correct way to be treating consumers.
I'm not making a judgment about it. I'm agnostic on
that part of it. But I think it's interesting that.
You know, what I do think will be really interesting
is does this stick around the dynamic pricing concept in
terms of tickets. It's already lasted longer than I thought.
This has been going on a few years now, when
it started. I remember thinking this isn't going to last.
There is going to be so much backlash to this.
People are not going to like it. People are used
to tickets go on sale, They go on sale for
a particular price. If a show isn't selling, rarely will
you even see the price go down, right, You rarely
see that. You very rarely see discounted tickets. In fact,
you're Look, if you're a promoter and you've got a
big show in an arena, say right, and tickets aren't moving,
you'll give away tickets before you'll lower the prices. That's
true if you've got if you've got a show in
a ten thousand seat arena. Again, this is if you're
the promoter putting on the show, not the band's management
has no say in this, or certainly not the record label, nobody,
or even the venue. You're the promoter and you're deciding.
You're making decisions based on how these tickets are moving.
If it's soft, meaning you're not selling enough tickets, you're
not selling as many as you thought you were, what
you'll do is very often is they call it papering
the room, which means because what you don't want at
the end of the day is a half empty arena.
So if you're in a ten thousand seat venue and
you're only on track to sell five thousand tickets, you
don't want that. It just doesn't look good right to
have a ten thousand seed arena that's only half full.
So if you were thinking you're gonna sell eight thousand, right,
so you'd be at eighty percent capacity. Sorry, if I'm
getting two into the weeds, but I know a lot
of people in the industry listen to the show. So
if you're only at you think you're gonna be at
eighty percent capacity, you're gonna sell eight thousand out of
ten thousand seats, and but it's looking like you're only
gonna hit five thousand. You don't want a half empty arena,
So you will give away tickets to that show. It
happens all the time. You'll be contacting every radio station
you can find that you think might be interested in
doing a ticket giveaway. You'll be giving them out to
businesses and saying here, give these to your employees, or
do some kind of contest, do whatever you want with them.
Just make sure people from your company show up at
the show. You'll do anything that you can to get
more people in the door. And at that point, it's
all about the optics of it. It's all about what
it looks like. Because you don't want to put on
a show in a ten thousand seed arena that's literally
half full and then have that, you know, have people
hear about it, have people seeing on social media tickets
of a half empty arena, just all of that. You
want it to look like everything that you do is successful.
So you're going to paper again it's called paper in
the room. You're going to try to get as many
people in there as you can, and if that means
because you have nothing to lose, right, if you're not
going to sell those tickets, you might as well give
them away because the show's gonna happen no matter what,
and you're gonna have to pay everybody, no matter what.
If you're the promoter, you've got financial obligations tied up
in this. You might take a loss on that show,
but you might as well get as money as many
people in the door as you can, so at least
it looks good. So the point being, what you'll rarely see,
I can't say never, but what you'll see is a
promoter say, Okay, these tickets they're not moving at sixty dollars,
so I think we're going to drop the price to
fifty or to forty and see if we can sell
some more. You just don't see that they'd rather paper
the room than lower the price on the tickets. Reason being,
if you lower the price on the tickets, again, not
using Ticketmaster's dynamic pricing, I'm just saying, if you decide,
as the promoter, you're going to lower the price, now
you're you're risking well, first of all, you're risking alienating
the people who already bought the tickets at the higher price.
So you don't want them going on social media saying
hey I got ripped off. But although that's probably not
that likely. But what you also don't want to happen
is what if you lower the price but it doesn't
it doesn't juice the sales. Now you're taking an even
bigger loss. You could lower the price, but it doesn't
increase your sales. The same number of people who were
probably going to buy tickets end up buying the tickets
anyway regardless. Right, So they would have bought the tickets
anyway if they were still ten dollars more, twenty dollars more.
So you lower the price, you still only sell five
thousand tickets. You're you've still got a half empty room,
and you've actually made less money. So it's not worth
the risk. So the best thing to do, at least
in my experience and from what I've seen, is in
that situation, you leave the ticket price as it is
and you just hope that you know, you get a
lot of walk up right, you know, people coming showing
up on the day of and and yeah, you try
to paper the room, you try to give out some
tickets too, but this dynamic pricing has changed everything. So
again getting back to this article, over ten million fans
from one hundred and fifty eight countries are confirmed to
have qu up on Saturday, August thirty one to buy
tickets to the tour. Yeah so it was yeah, so,
like I said, it was last last weekend that the
tickets went on sale. Two Additionally, additional Wembley Stadium shows
have been added due to quote unprecedented demand during the sale,
which Oasis said in a press release Saturday, Quote saw
all ticket platforms struggling to cope, resulting in immense frustration
and disappointment for fans who missed out after queuing for
many hours. Unquote. By the way, the same thing happened
in the United States, if you remember with Taylor Swift,
same thing. You know, people were frustrated, they were trying
to get I remember seeing people on social media just
you know, in tears over it. They were so desperately
trying to get Taylor Swift tickets and couldn't because you know,
you wait, you log onto the website, you're in the queue,
You're waiting and waiting and waiting, and then eventually something happens.
You know, maybe the site crashes, or you know, there's
something something goes wrong, maybe your computer suddenly wants to update,
it shuts itself down and restarts or whatever it is, right,
you know, after you've already invested hours of your time
and then now you're you're at the back of the line,
or now you log back in and the shows sold out.
So you know, so this this is not in and
of itself unprecedented, but to put the extent of that
demand into context. Wembley, where Oasis are now set to
play seven of the tour's nineteen dates, as a capacity
of ninety thousand, which means that the band would need
to perform one hundred and eleven dates at the stadium
to meet the demand for next year's tour. The following
Wednesday and the same press release announcing the two additional
Wembley shows, Oasis publicly distanced themselves from the decisions that
led to the use of Ticketmaster's dynamic pricing tools during
the sale. Yeah, so a lot of this went on.
Where now Oasis, the Gallagher brothers, Lowell I'm calling them.
I've melded them together into one person, Lowell Gallagher. It's
just easier economy of language, my friends. So now fans
are pointing at them and going, you guys are bad,
you guys are greedy. All this In reality, it really
doesn't have much to do with them, but they're going
to take the blame. Of course, they're the public faces
of this. I have a hunch that they probably don't
care that much because you know, they they're extremely rich
and famous, and you know is you know, it probably
doesn't affect that much. I don't think a mean comment
from a fan is going to hurt the Gallagher brothers.
But but that is, you know, they're they're the face
of it. So it's they're going to take the brunt
of the anger and ire from people, It says here.
Informed sources speaking to MBW, which is Music Business Worldwide,
this is a great website. This week estimated that ten
to fifteen percent of the one point four million tickets
sold over the weekend were quote dynamically priced on ticket Master,
meaning the price automatically adjusts based on supply and demand.
The price for these tickets more than doubled from a
face value of around one hundred and fifty pounds I
assume that's pounds to an in demand price tag of
around three hundred and fifty five, causing fan outcry on
social media platforms and much discussion in other media outlets,
including MBW on Tuesday, and again, that takes us back
to what I was saying before about how long will
this last? People don't like the dynamic pricing, they end
up feeling taken advantage of, and they end up feeling
ripped off. As a free market economist, I'm not an economist.
I'm sorry as but as but as a I don't
know why I said economist, but you know, as someone
who believes in free markets, let me put it that way.
I you know, I'm not I'm not really taking a
position one way or the other. It's it's supply and demand.
It's being applied here. It's almost like an auction in
a sense, right, But buying these tickets, I'm not. I'm
not taking a position. I'm gonna remain agnostic on it,
at least for now. But I'm telling you this could
be the nail in the coffin of this particular strategy,
because people are you know, the last thing you want
is your consumers or your fans to feel that they've
been victimized. You know, I saw one comment somebody directed
at the Gallaghers saying, you know, I wouldn't have thought.
I wouldn't have thought you would be so greedy. You know,
your fan base is, you know, kind of working class people,
and here you are being so greedy. And again it's
but it's not it's not them. I'm not saying they're
not greedy. Maybe they are. I don't know. Again, you know,
you get when you get to that level. I mean,
there's been plenty of research and studies done on this.
When you get to a certain level of fame and money,
there is a certain almost as sociopathy that sets in, right,
So you know, I'm not saying they're not terrible people.
They may be, they may not be. I don't know.
I'm a fan of their music, but if I actually
met them, I might be horrified. They say, don't meet
your heroes. I don't know. But it's ultimately not their fault.
But but if there's enough outcry over this, over this
whole dynamic pricing thing, this might be the beginning of
the end of it. So the band's press release said, quote,
it needs to be made clear that Oasis leave decisions
on ticketing and pricing entirely to their promoters and management,
and at no time had any awareness at dynamic pricing
was going to be used. Unquote. Is that satisfactory? Probably
from a pr standpoint, Probably not. No one's going to
believe that. No one who's no one who's angry about
this is going to read that statement and say, oh, okay,
it's really got nothing to do with them. I mean,
it's true in a sense, right, but there's a there's
a big hole in this though too. Let me read
part of this again. It is it needs to be
made clear that Oasis leave decisions on ticketing and pricing
entirely to their promoters and management. One little problem with that.
So promoters are people you're in business with, right, the
promoter is the one. Well, the promoter first of all,
takes all the risk. Again, I have experience in this,
so I know how this feels. Not on this level obviously,
but you know the promoters putting on the shows and
handling all of that, so you are somewhat at a
promoter's mercy. The problem is the sentence says that they
leave this to their promoters and management, and management is
a problem to me because that's there's a cop out there.
Oh that's our management. Well, here's the thing is, management
works for the band. The band doesn't work for management.
It's not how you know, It's not like in the
corporate world. You know, when if you have a manager,
you work for your manager, right, they're your boss, you know.
In the music industry it's the other way around in
that If if you are an artist and you have
a manager, the manager is someone you hire. They work
for you. You hire them to run your business, the
business of your music. So for the band to say, well,
that's not up to us, we leave that to our management.
Well that the management works for you, dude. You know,
you can't really pass the buck. You know, they're your
employee in a sense, not literally an employee. They you know,
they've got contracts and everything. But you know what I'm saying,
you know, So to say it's one thing to say,
I you know, you can kind of let it fly
a little bit and say, well, it's it's not our fault,
it's it's you know, we leave that to the promoters. Well, yeah,
that's what the promoter does, right, that's their function. But
to say and management, well, that's your management is they're
your management. You You can fire your management if you
want to. You can tell your management don't do it
this way. It's upsetting our fans. You can tell your
management to handle it differently. Okay, So there's more to
the statement quote. While prior meetings between promoters, ticket Master,
and the band's management resulted in a positive ticket sales
strategy which would be a fair experience for fans, including
dynamic ticketing to help keep general ticket prices down, as
well as reduced touting, the I don't know touting is
that maybe that's a term for that almost sounds like
a might be another term for scalping. In the United States,
we call it scalping. Maybe there they call it touting.
I don't know, sorry, I just I don't know what
that word means in that, but I assume from the
context it might be another term for scalping. The execution
of the plan failed to meet expectations. All parties involved
did their utmost to deliver the best possible fan experience,
but due to the unprecedented demand, this became impossible.
Speaker 5: To a.
Speaker 4: M I feel like there's a contradiction here. Did anyone
else hear a contradiction? Yeah, there's a there's a pretty
latent contradiction self contradiction in this statement that to me
seems glaringly obvious. So let's back up a little bit.
So the statement opens with it needs to be made
clear that Oasis leave decisions on ticketing and pricing entirely
to their promoters and management, and at no time had
any awareness that dynamic pricing was to be used. So
the band had no idea according to that paragraph or
that opening statement, that opening sentence, that of the statement,
that dynamic pricing was to be used. But then they say, oh, okay,
I'm sorry, No, I was wrong. I was wrong. I retract,
There is no There is no contradiction. I thought there
was a contradiction because it sounded like they're saying that
Oasis had no idea, the band had no idea. And
then I see this sentence while while prior meetings between promoter,
Sigmaster and the band's management resulted in a positive ticket strategy,
you know that everyone thought would be fair, and I
thought I took that as everyone was involved in that decision.
But no, that's not correct. The band the band is
not mentioned in that part, so there is no contradiction.
I was wrong about that. I apologize, Okay, all right, well,
so taking that into account, it's probably the best possible
statement that you know that it's the best damage control
they could do. Let me put it that way. It's
not going to satisfy people, but it's uh damage control
is about just doing the best you can with a
rough situation. The CMA said today that and again that's
the part of the government that does consumer protection in
the UK that it is at the initial stage of
its investigation. It will now engage with Ticketmaster and gather
evidence from various other sources, which quote may include the
band's management and event organizers unquote SJM, Live Nation, MCD
and DF Concerts are promoting the Oasis tour. Ticketmaster was
one of the three sites used, along with Gigs and
Tours and See Tickets. The CMA is stressed in its
statement on Thursday that quote, it should not be assumed
that Ticketmaster has broken consumer protection law unquote No, I
mean and from look, I'm not a legal expert of
any kind, and there may be an element to this
that I'm missing, but I don't see any anything that
makes me say, oh, it sounds like, look, we can
talk about this whole dynamic pricing strategy is being kind
of dirty business. Right again, I'm going to remain agnostic
on it for now, but that doesn't mean it's and
that anything's illegal about it yet. Right, there's nothing illegal
about it that I can see. The Competition Regulator added
that it will quote also consider whether it is appropriate
to investigate the conduct of anyone else in relation to
the matter unquote. Dynamic ticket pricing sees prices surge in
real time as demand rises, similar to airline tickets or Uber.
Live Nation has previously argued that the program addresses the
issue of scalpers buying up tickets at face value and
then selling them at a higher price point. Wait, they
have I got to click this link they have. That's
their argument that it reduces scalping. That's why they do it. Uh.
I just clicked and I just looked another article that
might explain it. But well, we might come back to
this later if we have time.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 4: I don't see how that would be the case. But
I'm open to the argument, but I don't see how
how would that How would that prevent scalping? What am
I missing? Maybe I'm missing something again. I'm trying to
be fair, all right.
Speaker 11: Uh.
Speaker 4: The CMA said on Thursday, they quote this is not
the first time that the use of dynamic pricing has
raised concerns among fans of live sporting events and music
events unquote. According to the CMA, while the practice is
quote not automatically unlawful, it may breach consumer protection or
competition law in certain circumstances unquote. Sarah Cardell, chief executive
of the CMA, said, quote, it's important that fans are
treated fair early when they buy tickets, which is why
we've launched this investigation. It's clear that many people felt
they had a bad experience and we're surprised by the
price of their tickets at checkout. We want to hear
from fans who went through the process and may have
encountered issues, so that we can investigate whether existing consumer
protection law has been breached by the way. That's something
there's more to the statement, but that's something we can
all relate to. Right, you go to buy tickets and again,
I you know this doesn't I don't think this really
happens with smaller ticketing agencies or smaller tours. But you
go to buy tickets from Live Nation and you go
to check out, and the ticket price is suddenly much higher,
not not necessarily because of dynamic pricing, but all these
all these fees and taxes and everything, and you thought
you were going to spend one hundred dollars on a ticket,
and all of a sudden it's you get to check
out and it's one hundred and fifty and you're like,
where did this other? I mean no, I'm not even exaggerating, right,
it'll be that much more. It's it's wild and and
there's like all these fees and you know there's a yeah,
there's just any any fee you can. You can imagine.
I don't remember too. It's been a while since I've
even bought tickets from Ticketmaster. I don't know. I don't
remember if it even itemizes it for you, doesn't Maybe
if somebody's in the chat room, I should take a
breath and say hello to everybody in the chat room.
But does it even itemize it for you? Or does
it just say taxes and fees and it's this huge
additional number that you weren't expecting, or you were expecting
if you buy tickets from Ticketmaster regularly. But Alex Whitey
is in the chat room, one of our friends from
the UK, oh says touting is a term used for
people selling tickets on for higher prices. Okay, Oh. Miriam
Banish also joins us in the Facebook lat chat. Yeah,
thank you for that, Alex.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 4: We don't use that term in the Uh. We don't
use touting. We have a call. It's see who we
have here? Hi, welcome to Matt Conderson. At least who's this?
Speaker 5: Hey?
Speaker 12: It's true?
Speaker 4: Hey, Charles Richardson, how are you?
Speaker 12: I've been better, but hanging in there.
Speaker 4: What's what's going on? I should by the way, Charles
I should just tell you upfront, we only have a
few minutes because we have a guest calling in at
ten am. But what's on your life?
Speaker 12: I want to try and make it quick. Number one
take a master Live Nation. All these other they're all
scam artists.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 12: And the fact that they're going with this this pricing
technique is really embarrassing. Listen, if I buy a seat
in section one O one in the first ten rows,
it should be one price, the next ten rows of
another price. They should not be any alternative pricing. But
they're scam artists because you got this ticket charge fee,
you got this fee that feet the damn fees costs
more than the damn tickets sometimes, so I think it's
all just a really big joke.
Speaker 4: If you wore well it is it is true. I
mean you get to the uh, you get to the
end of the process and and the the price is
it just all of a sudden, it's yeah. Sometimes the
fees they are almost as much or perhaps even more
uh than than the ticket itself. It's wild, it is.
Speaker 5: It is.
Speaker 12: It's embarrassing to buy tickets nowadays because everything's done online
and they're just reaping the benefits the fact that they
do alternate pricing for scalpers. Are you kidding me? Please?
That's such a lame excuse. That's almost like the glub
didn't fit your honor.
Speaker 4: Come out of here, all right, bye, Charles, good here
for you, my friend. Take care all right. That was
Charles Richardson, of course, uh from the Charles Richardson Show,
although I think he's taking a little bit of a
break from that right now. But good here from Charles. Yeah,
I mean, I'm not gonna go I relate to his frustration, certainly,
I think most of us probably do. I'm not going
to go so far as to say that it's a scam,
because you know, to use that word, I would say
a scam would be in my mind, if you go
to buy the tickets and you after you've checked out,
you end up with a charge on your credit card
or your debit or whatever that's higher than what you
thought it was going to be. You do know what
the final price is before you click that to pay
that and make that purchase. But it is true, so
I would not I would not technically call it a scam.
I would I would disagree with Charles on that, although
I'm certainly sympathetic with the broader point that he was making.
And again, and I think a lot of us can
relate to that frustration, and it is interesting, like you
you really and this absolutely I don't think anyone can
argue with It is definitely designed the unless it's changed. Again,
I haven't bought tickets from Ticketmaster in quite a while,
so unless the process has changed, it is designed so
that you don't see that final number until the very end.
So you're going through the entire process and picking your
seats and everything. You're going through that entire process unless
you have bought tickets recently.
Speaker 12: Right.
Speaker 4: If it's if you go to a lot of shows,
none of this will surprise you. But if you don't
go to a lot of shows, you're going through that
entire process with one price in your mind. And then
you get to that final screen and that's where it
shows you all these fees and you're like, oh, this
ticket just doubled in price. Let's see. Isaac Banks is
also in the chat room. Alex Whiteley says people had
to sign into their Ticketmaster wait to be accepted into
a ballot, which took out for some. Then some were
told that they were going to have to pay upwards
of four hundred pounds per ticket. Yeah, I mean again,
I don't know that I would call it a scam
per se, but it certainly is. I think we can
all understand why from a just from a consumer standpoint,
you might have a pretty bad taste in your mouth
after going through that. Right, All right, here's what we
gotta do, because we are approaching the top of the hour.
We're gonna take a quick break and show some love
to our amazing sponsors here at WM and H as
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Speaker 7: And then.
Speaker 4: Oh you know what, Oh there it is. Then we
have John Poussett Dart calling in. He's got a big
show coming up at the at the Rex Theater on Friday,
so he's gonna be joining us. So we've got plenty
more to come if you are listening live on Saturday morning.
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