Oasis: How Ticket Sellers can Avoid Disappointing Customers

UK-based rock band Oasis announced an extensive and much-anticipated UK and Ireland music tour, fifteen years after the duo parted ways.

Given such high demand, fans scrambled to get their hands on one of 1.4 million available tickets. However, as tickets went on sale at 9am BST, many were left disappointed as ticket sites, including Ticketmaster, See Tickets and Gigsandtours, crashed. Issues including error messages and customers being kicked off before they would make a purchase were also reported.

It highlights how ticket-selling companies can struggle with customer demand and are not necessarily well-equipped to handle IT events like website crashes.

The implications of website traffic spikes

It was expected that tour tickets would be sold out in minutes, yet many waited in online queues for hours until Oasis announced at 7pm that tickets had sold out - 10 hours later. Additionally, those who did manage to select tickets for various cities found that the cost had risen without warning, on account of dynamic pricing.

Dynamic pricing refers to a revenue management pricing strategy where businesses set flexible prices for products based on current market demands. 

“There has got to be a fairer, simpler, more efficient way of selling tickets,” British TV presenter Dan Walker commented on X.

When technology doesn’t work effectively, it can lead to the customer becoming frustrated. Now relying heavily on websites in order to access a broad range of services, failures such as glitches, crashes or system outages can lead to valuable time being wasted, lost productivity and diminished trust in the brand they are trying to use.

“The announcement of the Oasis reunion tour has shone a light on the need for ticketing companies to assess how they can improve their online experiences,” comments Danielle Harvey, Global VP, Head of Travel and Hospitality Strategy at Quantum Metric. “With soaring levels of traffic causing websites to crash, customer frustrations are likely to be high. In times like this, it’s more important than ever to demonstrate a commitment to making the ticket-booking experience as seamless as possible.

“This is particularly true for mobile apps, as overall error rates are reportedly 2-3X higher on mobile than desktop. These glitches undermine consumer confidence, making customers hesitate before finalising transactions on their phones. Whether consumers perceive a ticketing app as poorly maintained or suspect a security risk, many will either give up on their purchase entirely or switch to their more dependable desktop to finish their purchase.”

In order to mitigate these concerns, companies - particularly ticket-sellers - could implement a wide range of productive solutions that are designed to improve overall customer experience. 

For instance, organisations could implement automated systems and greater self-service options that could stand to benefit the customer further. Specifically, ticketing companies will benefit from refining their native apps and websites to solve inefficiencies.

“Additionally, they can enhance their value proposition by investing in digital self-service tools, such as AI-powered chatbots,” Danielle notes. “This will enable customers to quickly access answers to their queries. Not only does this increase customer satisfaction, but it also prevents surges in website traffic from overwhelming call centres. This helps to decrease costs, protect revenue and drive conversions.” 

Bot concerns continue

Whilst a limited number of people were able to secure Oasis tickets through a presale ballot on Friday, there have been some reports of tickets being put up for resale. These resale tickets have had their prices inflated dramatically, with ticket touting being publicly condemned. Oasis has even confirmed that tickets “sold in breach of the terms and conditions will be cancelled by the promoters”.

Ticket resellers may have had a crucial role behind the ticket website issues, perhaps utilising automated software to buy more tickets for events than is permitted, only to sell them on at higher prices.

AI can often have a key role in this process, with ticket scalpers using bots to monitor websites and event sites to create fake accounts and automatically checkout with multiple tickets. This type of fraud impersonates legitimate users and operates much faster than humans.

Bot use has been rising in recent months, with more sophisticated systems being able to take advantage of and even overwhelm websites with their traffic.

Imperva’s Karl Triebes previously told Cyber Magazine: “The significant increase in bot sophistication over the past year should be a cause for concern. This breed of automation is harder to stop and capable of abusing business logic, attacking APIs, and taking over user accounts. For vulnerable retailers, this has the potential to impact their bottom line and undermine end-of-year sales.”

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