Saturday was the release of Oasis tickets for general sale in the UK.
Now I would not say that I am an Oasis fan really, but having spent time in Manchester in the early 90s, it did evoke a certain nostalgia for my youth… I decided to join the queue.
I thought if I was lucky and the tickets were under £150, why not go along? It will be quite the spectacle. [In transparency, I felt the same about the Taylor Swift Eras tour… and despite some wild accusations from friends, I would not describe myself as a Swifty! Big bands and performers are just real pros and like them or not, worth going to see. It is always impressive to watch skilled artists at work].
So before 9 am, I got the largest cup of tea I could find and logged on. On my screen, a little bar appeared and I was in the queue.
4 hours later I was still in the queue, with the bar moving so slowly that I had been out to the shops, run some errands and even vacuumed the house (an upside?).
At 1:30 it was almost there, then poosh, I could log in and pick a date… Wednesday the 30th, London, mid-week hopefully not too busy I thought… click
… another queue, this time to pick a seat or ticket type and check out, this time helpfully giving the number of people ahead of me… only 425,000 people!
Now for those of you statistically minded.
- Wembley Stadium Capacity (for concerts) – 90,000
- The entire population of Bristol, UK (2023) – 423,000
- Likelihood of my getting a ticket – 0%
I gave up, resigning myself to at least having been in the queue, having a story to tell and it did strike me that maybe I was a queue tourist… not sure if this was a thing, and good, or bad.
Looking on social media I was clearly not alone… and for those that didn’t give up, for latecomers like me, the scourge of surge pricing also kicked in.
It seems despite all the statements about how ticket touts should not resell tickets at inflated prices, the official vendors could inflate standing-only tickets from ~£150 to ~£350 to reflect demand on the day.
Admittedly, we don’t see the same level of outage for airline tickets normally, although the same thing happens… “to ensure seats are available for everyone to purchase”… we all feel it though, especially during the school holidays.
And this brings us to the topic of price increases… it does seem like this is a running theme again. Some stats again for this year.
- Mobile phone tariff, up by nearly 8%
- Energy costs, up by 10%
- Adobe Creative Cloud, up by 10%
- Linkedin Subscription, up by 20%
- Car Insurance, up by over 40%
- Rate of Inflation: ~3%
- Likelihood of 20% salary increase: 0%
Outside of any arguments about the inflation rate is calculated, and ‘tweaked’… it does seem like there is a discrepancy between the headline inflation rate and actual price increases.
It is starting to feel like many companies have thrown in the towel on managing costs, and simply increased prices to increase margin. If after all that is what the market will bear and everyone else is doing it why not…?
At this point let’s also remember all of this is against some massive opportunities for productivity increases from digitalisation or processes. There are new automation opportunities being opened up by AI…
Sadly looking at my emails, despite the promise of AI, to date it is being cited more as an added feature, marketing to me the justification for the massive price increase. In consumer’s minds they are kind of expecting, a smoother service for the same (and certainly no higher than a inflation rate increase in) price.
And, the bigger danger with all this short-term margin maximisation, it simply drives more inflation. It makes me worry that we need to get ready for much higher inflation rates in the future, as this works through the system too. [think up to 20%]
…however, on the positive, this is also a massive opportunity for those who do not follow suit.
Consumers and businesses, in such an environment, will be looking for value, the same products for a better deal.
Think about ‘over the top’ media such as Netflix and streaming has challenged high prices at cinemas, WhatsApp international calls vs the traditional telephone calls and the whole FinTech financial services space. Changes are already afoot.
This even applies to smaller, local, producers of household goods. After all why pay high prices for a mass-market product, when I can get a higher-quality local product for the same price?
So there is some reason for optimism.. new, smaller or local providers, with greater efficiency, can go after increasing volume, rather than just increasing rate (price).
I am not exactly sure this approach is going to help with my Oasis tickets… although there is a local band night on Tuesdays, which is fun (and free).
Have a good week, everyone!
