Sir Keir Starmer has vowed to make concert tickets ‘at a price people can afford’ following the row over Oasis dynamic pricing.
The Prime Minister promised to ‘grip this’, hinting at possible changes to legislation to stop fans being fleeced.
Tickets for the band’s reunion tour next summer went on sale on Saturday morning, triggering a huge frenzy to secure seats.
But fans were left distraught when prices to see Liam and Noel Gallagher shot up due to ‘high demand’, leading to calls for so-called ‘dynamic pricing’ for shows to be banned.
Sir Keir said there were ‘a number of things we can do’ to and we should do’ to fix the issue which he said is ‘not just an Oasis problem’, the Sun reported.
He said: ‘This is a problem for tickets for all sorts of events where people go online straight away as soon as they can and within seconds sometimes, if sometimes minutes, all the tickets are gone and the prices start going through the roof, which means many people can’t afford it.
‘On that, I do think there are a number of things that we can do and we should do because otherwise you get to the situation where families simply can’t go or are absolutely spending a fortune on tickets, whatever it may be.
‘So we’ll grip this and make sure that actually, tickets are available at a price that people can actually afford.’
Cabinet member Lisa Nandy said the Government would review the policy of dynamic pricing and the queueing technology ‘which incentivise it’ following what she called ‘depressing’ inflated Oasis ticket prices.
‘This government is committed to putting fans back at the heart of music’, she said.
Standard tickets for the Manchester band’s reunion tour more than doubled from about £150 to £350 on Ticketmaster’s website amid a scramble on Saturday.
Among millions hit by sudden price surges was Leader of the House of Commons and Manchester Central MP Lucy Powell, who said she had to pay double the originally quoted price for a ticket.
The band and Ticketmaster confirmed at 7pm on Saturday that all remaining tickets had been sold.
Tickets on retail websites were being advertised after even more extortionate prices, with some being shown for as much as £14,104 yesterday.
The Liberal Democrats branded the pricing shambles ‘scandalous’, calling for it to be ‘watershed moment’ and for an official investigation into the practice of dynamic pricing.
Its culture spokesperson, Jamie Stone said: ‘The Oasis ticket fiasco must be a watershed moment and lead to an official investigation, either by the watchdog or a parliamentary body .
Dynamic pricing involves varying the price of a ticket according to the level of demand for it.
It’s a practice routinely used across several industries, including travel and hospitality.
Ticketmaster started listing dynamic prices in 2022, in what it said was a move to stop ticket touts and ensure more income goes to artists.
The site’s ‘platinum’ tickets are described as those with prices that vary according to supply and demand.
It says the system is designed to ‘give fans fair and safe access to the tickets, while enabling artists and other people involved in staging live events to price tickets closer to their true market value’.
But the policy has attracted opposition from other prominent artists, including Ed Sheeran and Taylor Swift, who both refused to use it on their most recent UK tours.