First off, let me be clear: I am not for one minute making any accusations, allegations, scare stories, creating rumours or trying to ‘rabble rouse’ here. But I genuinely feel we as West Ham fans need to stay calm, yes, but very vigilant about ticket sales – especially when West Ham United have just renewed their ticketing arrangement with their ‘chosen partner’, and said ‘partner’ is to be investigated over its handling of ‘dynamic pricing’ strategies for the recent Oasis tour ticket fiasco.
I’m sure anyone involved in public relations at any Premier League Football Club will leap to the defence of current arrangements with season ticket holders and deny flatly any possibility of their club having any current plans to move toward ‘dynamic ticketing’.
At the moment.
For anyone who doesn’t know, ‘dynamic ticketing’ refers to a clever algorithm increasing the on-line ticket price as demand rises. Used by budget airlines, you’ll have experienced this if you’ve tried to book a flight to one of West Ham’s Euro away fixtures and found the flight price going up virtually before your eyes.
Ticketmaster, the company behind Oasis ticket sales and the Competition and Markets Authority Investigation, has been running Hammers ticket sales very satisfactorily (some won’t agree no doubt!) for nearly 10 years and according to theticketingbusiness.com the contract has been renewed.
But not so long ago, it was inconceivable that Rock Concert Tickets would shoot up 300% in price overnight. So, ‘scuse me for being cynical but I’m going to remain hyper-vigilant for the smallest indication in future years that the club or the company that runs the ticketing system is ‘trialling, experimenting, adapting or varying’ the process – because we all know what that means. I’d hope every Hammers fan will just keep an eye on things too.
Dynamic pricing is very effective as a business model – no doubting its effectiveness in increasing bottom-line profits: But as this is half way between a football club and an entertainment industry we’d like to make sure some of the ‘entertainment industry’ practises don’t find their way to London Stadium.
I was looking for an extra ticket for Chelsea up in the gods near to where I am as season ticket holder. A week ago they were £85, earlier this week once ticket exchange was live they were £65. Today they are back at £85.
interesting, wonder what they will be in the morning!
Isn’t charging more for a category A game etc a form of dynamic pricing
not as I refer to it. if the price rose the more times you logged in to try and buy the same ticket on the same day it’d be ‘dynamic’. Setting higher prices at the outset for more ‘appealing’ games is a different thing.
Na babez supply and demand innit. I’ve been a lifelong hammer boy for yearz and that’s just way it is babez
It ain’t going nowhere Hun
Isnt this already being done with category A, B and C games. Upgraded my sons child ticket to an adult for the Chelsea game…£70. Upgraded same ticket for Ipswich game…£35.
Dynamic pricing for gigs is nothing new, been going on for a number of years now.
Ticketmaster have basically given permission to encourage tickets touting on their own site when you are led there from the official ticket sales links. People can sell at whatever price they want, Ticketmaster take a cut.
Then there are the bands/artists and promoters who also have their fingers in the dirty pie.
Remember the days when ticket pricing was one price for all? Now, for big gigs, you can literally have up to 20 price cats and the only way it will ever stop is if people stop buying them.
As for football clubs, it’s been going on for a very long time with they way they categorise matches IE you want to pay more to watch West Ham play a so called bigger club. Villa went from £40 for decent ticket season before last to stupid money because they had a good season.
Again, like the ticket sellers, promoters and bands, the clubs profit from this and don’t be fooled thinking they don’t.