Edinburgh Oasis Murrayfield gig ticket buyer says website 'thought she was a bot'
A Scottish woman hoping to bag tickets to Oasis' Edinburgh gig was left 'frustrated' on Saturday.
Thousands rushed to Ticketmaster on August 31 in an attempt to get tickets for the Live '25 tour only to find themelves 'battling' the website. The Gallagher brothers are playing in Edinburgh on August 8, 9 and 12 next year at Murrayfield Stadium.
Isobel Callaghan, 68, was waiting on the website 'for hours'. After three attempts of trying to get tickets for her nephew Laurence and his wife, she claims Ticketmaster thought she was 'a bot' and was 'barred from the website.'
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Isobel told how she had previous experience in ticketing systems and remembers when people had to queue for concert tickets - she said it was a 'simpler time'.
Speaking to Edinburgh Live, she added: "I've got experience with ticketing but nothing like this. My nephew Laurence is a huge Oasis fan. He has seen them before but was on holiday at the weekend. So I offered to get them for him and his partner on Saturday.
"I didn't go onto the website straight away because I knew so many other people would be queueing. I waited till around 2pm. At first, I couldn't even access the website. I was then put into a sort of waiting room. I'm not used to these systems and I don't think the instructions were that clear.
"I had a two-hour wait and I was something like 47,000th in the queue. I thought, 'they must be kidding!'. They never said the tickets had sold out and I kept on waiting until I was first in the queue.
"I was scared to move from my phone in case I was put first, I just glued to the screen, watching these numbers go down. I was too worried to even get a cup of tea. It was ludicrous!"
When Isobel finally made it to the front of the queue, she explained there was only a small patch of 'blue' on the map for Murrayfield Stadium, signalling the remaining tickets.
"I'm very familiar with Murrayfield so I knew they were up in the gods. But when I went to click them, they suddenly disappeared and I wasn't able to add them to the basket. I couldn't click on anything. That was for the Saturday gig. I tried to go back to look at Friday but then I was thrown back into a waiting room and the whole thing started again."
When she attempted to look at Tuesday's gig (August 12), the new Edinburgh date, the 68-year-old claimed she was met with a message from Ticketmaster accusing her of 'unusual activity' and was believed to be 'a bot'.
"I didn't even know what a bot was until then. I had to Google it," Isobel added, "I had started at 2pm and now it was about 5pm. I must have been off my rocker to have been waiting that long. At one point I thought I was going through some mid-life crisis."
After being stopped from going any further on the website, Isobel admitted defeat and called it a day.
"I can't believe I was sitting there on my phone for that long. I don't even like Oasis! It was for Laurence, not me!"
After news came out regarding the dynamic pricing, the devoted auntie said she would have 'flipped' if she had been asked to pay £300 for a ticket.
She said: "The ones I was looking at were around £150, and even then that's expensive. But this dynamic pricing isn't right. How are working-class people meant to afford it? For four tickets, that's someone's monthly salary."
Isobel, who's from the Southside of Glasgow, used to work at the SECC in the 90s and remembers people queueing for tickets. She also remembered someone throwing a bottle at the Oasis gig in Glasgow in 1997.
"I know there were thousands of people trying to get tickets and you can't have that many people queueing outside but it was easier then," she said.
"You knew if you were queuing when the tickets had sold out, or if you wanted to try and wait and see if there were more, it was up to you. But Ticketmaster didn't tell you when you were queueing if there were tickets or if the price had gone up. It's disgraceful!"
On Saturday, August 31, Ticketmaster urged fans to hold their place in line and only use one tab. A spokesperson said: "The queue is moving along as fans buy tickets.
"As anticipated, millions of fans are accessing our site so have been placed in a queue. Fans are advised to hold their place in line, make sure they're only using one tab, clear cookies, and ensure they aren't using any VPN software on their device."
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The competition watchdog has launched an investigation into Ticketmaster over the dynamic pricing for Oasis.
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said its investigation would include how so-called ‘dynamic pricing’ may have been used and would scrutinise whether the sale of Oasis tickets by Ticketmaster may have breached consumer protection law.
The CMA stressed it should not be assumed that Ticketmaster had broken consumer protection law.
CMA chief executive Sarah Cardell said: “It’s important that fans are treated fairly 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 were surprised by the price of their tickets at check-out.
“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.
“The CMA also welcomes the government’s recent announcement that it will consult on measures to provide stronger protections to consumers in the ticketing sector, wherever they buy their tickets.
“This has been a priority focus for the CMA for several years, having previously taken enforcement action and recommended changes to improve the secondary tickets market. We are committed to working closely with government to tackle the longstanding challenges in the ticket market.”
A spokesman for Ticketmaster said: “We are committed to co-operating with the CMA and look forward to sharing more facts about the ticket sale with them.”
Ticketmaster has been approached for further comment.