News : Ticketmaster and Oasis bonfire effigy revealed in Edenbridge after dynamic ticket pricing controversy

Edenbridge Bonfire Society has revealed that this year’s effigy for the 2025 event will be based on the Ticketmaster Oasis fiasco.

The Kent-based society shared that the 11ft effigy which will be lit at the bonfire celebration this Saturday (November 2) was chosen as a response to Ticketmaster’s “greedy” dynamic pricing fiasco that occurred during the sale of tickets for Oasis’ 2025 reunion tour.

The sculpture also features puppets of both Liam and Noel Gallagher as it was their reunion tour that brought to light the reality of the ticket seller’s inflated pricing scheme.

As reported by BBC, the group have been “poking fun at infamous celebrities” for over 25 years and have previously targeted the likes of  Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, Sadiq Khan and more.

“In the eight years I’ve been doing this we have done so many politicians, so this year we really wanted to do something different,” Reece Hook – one of the effigy’s creators – told BBC.

He continued: “Although our effigy includes Liam and Noel Gallagher, they are not our target – it is the corporate giant of Ticketmaster we have gone with this year. We are all big Oasis fans and wish them a very successful tour.”

During the tumultuous sale for the legendary band’s UK and Ireland shows, some fans were disappointed to find ticket prices were impacted by the dynamic pricing policy upon accessing payment pages.

The ticketing platform’s “surge pricing” scheme, introduced in 2022, increases ticket prices based on demand. Ticketmaster have clarified on their website previously that tickets that are “market-priced” and “may increase or decrease at any time, based on demand. This is similar to how airline tickets and hotel rooms are sold.”

Now, a new law may be introduced in the UK that requires music and sports events to tell fans maximum prices at the beginning of a ticket-buying process. It follows Britain’s Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy condemning dynamic pricing and calling for a review of the policy.

At the time, Oasis responded with a statement which read: “Oasis leave decisions on ticketing and pricing entirely to their promoters and management, and at no time had any awareness that dynamic pricing was going to be used.”

The band later confirmed that a dynamic pricing structure would not be applied to their North American reunion tour dates.

Following the UK and Ireland sale controversy, the issue was brought to the Advertising Standards Agency and the European Commission, with a separate call for an investigation brought by the UK government. Experts also suggested that not warning Oasis fans of the dynamic pricing may breach consumer law.

More recently, Oasis have announced that they will be cancelling thousands of tickets to their upcoming UK 2025 reunion tour that have been sold via resale websites.

The band’s promoters, Live Nation and SJM, have revealed they will be cancelling all tickets sold via secondary ticketing sites. All invalidated tickets will then be made available again through Ticketmaster, at face value.

In other news, Liam Gallagher recently teased that Oasis are about to announce the South American leg of their huge reunion world tour.