American singer-songwriter Neil Young is following in The Cures footsteps and has sworn to stay away from dynamic pricing.
The Harvest Moon singer, aged 79, is set to headline Glastonbury and Hyde Park Festival this summer. He will also be performing in Malahide Castle this June with The Chrome Hearts as part of the Love Earth Tour.
Dynamic pricing relates to ticket sellers raising and reducing prices for tickets in real time based on demand and availability.
For Ticketmaster this meant offering “platinum” or “in demand” tickets, which the company says gives “fans the opportunity to purchase the most in demand tickets to an event, at a market-driven price.” The system was most controversially used during the sale of Oasis tickets in 2024 where seats that were originally £148.50 rose to £355.20.
In a statement made to Young’s website, he said that dynamic pricing was a “bad thing that has happened to concerts worldwide”.
“My management and agent have always tried to cover my back on the road, getting me the best deals they could. They have tried to protect me and the fans from scalpers who buy the best tickets and resell them at huge increases for their own profits.” the ‘Heart of Gold’ singer explained. “Ticketmaster’s high-priced Platinum tickets were introduced to the areas where scalpers were buying the most tickets for resale. The money went to me. That did not feel right.”
Young continued on to assure his fans that “Very soon, Platinum tickets will no longer be available for my shows. I have decided to let the people work this out. Buy aggressively when the tickets come out or tickets will cost a lot more in a secondary market.”
Young said his stance on this issue was inspired by an article from The Cure’s frontman Robert Smith. The Cure had committed to not having dynamic pricing on its tours with Smith telling The Times UK that the whole system was a “greedy scam”.
“I was shocked by how much profit is made. I thought, ‘We don’t need to make all this money." Smith told The Times. “My fights with the label have all been about how we can price things lower.”
“The only reason you’d charge more for a gig is if you were worried that it was the last time you would be able to sell a T-shirt.”
In response to Young’s statement, a Ticketmaster spokesperson said: “Ticketmaster is a marketplace that sells tickets on behalf of event organisers including sports teams, artist teams, theatre producers and so on. We respect their decisions to price their tickets how they see fit.”
“Ticketmaster is committed to making ticketing simple and transparent. Since 2018, our resale has been capped at face value, providing fans a safe place to sell tickets they can’t use at the original price set by artists and event organisers.
“We support proposals to introduce an industry-wide resale price cap. We also urge the government to crackdown on bots and ban speculative ticket sales.
“Ticketmaster welcomes any action to protect fans and give them the best chance at getting tickets to the events they love.”
Since the controversy surrounding the Oasis tickets, the Irish Government has been considering capping resale tickets at a certain price. The Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy called the new system “incredibly depressing”.
