My Oasis ticket hell: ‘I have finally reached the top of the queue but I have lost interest’

Tuesday, 9am: The worst kept secret in showbiz (for the last three days anyway) has been confirmed. The rock’n’roll stars are back baby and the world is going mad for it. Talk of ticket frenzies for Oasis concerts in Ireland and Britain forces those who were in the trenches in 2023 and still suffering PTSD to recall the horrors of the Coldplay and Taylor Swift scramble.
There are jokes about limiting access to the old folk who paid £6.50 to see the band in the Tivioli in 1994 or can at least sing Supersonic and Live Forever word perfect after 40 Major and 11 pints of lager. People who use TikTok should definitely be banned, the old folk fume.
There is some delight that there will be none of that presale or surge pricing nonsense so beloved of concert promoters these days. It will be a straight up bun fight on Saturday morning at 8am, a cruel and unusual time for a band like Oasis to put tickets up for grabs for sure, but at least we will all be in it together.
Tuesday, 5pm: There is a bloody presale. To get access we’re asked to take part in a ballot – a ballot no less. I’m all over it. There is a mini-table quiz involved which is very exciting. I answer the first question confidently. I have seen the band 1-2 times. It is, in fact, just the one time when they played support to REM in Slane in 1995. From what I recall they were grand. Liam swore at us, they sang the big tunes from their first album, and a couple from their second before finishing with I Am The Walrus.
The second question stumps me. Who is the original drummer? No idea. Like many millions of others I immediately google his name, answer the question and then wait for confirmation that I’m in a queue to get a code that will allow me join another queue that might give me the chance to buy tickets. And how much will they be? No idea but the MCD people have issued a breathless press release telling us tickets will be “from €86.50″ not including the lovely Ticketmaster service charge. €86.50? That seems reasonable, fair play to them.
[ Oasis tickets sale opens with some standing prices in excess of €400 and 500,000 fans in queueOpens in new window ]
Wednesday, 7.30am: No sign of my code or indeed any acknowledgment from the band that I got the name of the drummer right and have been entered in the ballot for access to the presale. I enter again using a different email address. This time I know the answer to the drummer question without needing Google.
Wednesday, 1pm: Where the hell is my code? I check my spam folder. Nothing there. People around me are getting responses from the Gallagher brothers but I have nothing. I wasn’t overly concerned about seeing the band but now that I might miss out because I don’t have the code, I’m raging.
Thursday, 4pm: Still no mail from Oasis. The cut-off point for confirming my entry into the ballot is 10am on Friday.
Friday, 9.51am: Still nothing. I check my spam folder. Nothing there either. Then I disconsolately look in the gmail folder marked “bin”, a place I have never visited before for many reasons, the main one being I didn’t even know it existed. But there – shining like a golden ticket in a Wonka bar – is a mail from Oasis. It was sent a good 36 hours earlier asking me to confirm my entry into the ballot. With seven minutes to spare before the cut off I click the confirm button and I am in. Or so I think.
[ The Irish Times view on 1990s nostalgia: don’t look back in angerOpens in new window ]
Friday, midday: I feel like I am in a 21st century poptastic version of Waiting for Godot. No sign of any code. But I’ve time on my side. Oasis have said everyone who is getting a code will have it by 5pm. I have a full five hours before I need to panic.
Friday, 2pm: Still no code. I only know one person who has one. The Oasis social media accounts are saying all the codes have been sent now. I am left behind.
Friday, 7.05pm: I’m like a sickly latch key child in rags staring through the coal dust covered window of a sweet shop at all these bucket hat wearing children hoovering up the delicious tickety treats. Some of the treats seem quite pricey mind. MCD said the tickets would cost “from €86.50″. But most of the people on my X feed are paying more than double that. Some people are being asked for in excess of €400 for tickets. Some might say that’s a rip off. “But it is probably just a presale thing,” I think. “The cheap seats will be up for grabs tomorrow for sure.”
Saturday, 7.15am: The alarm goes off and I hop out of bed, log on to my Ticketmaster account and am given the green light to join a waiting room that will allow me to join a queue that will allow me to buy tickets for the “Status Quo of the 90s” as Damon Albarn once described them cruelly, if not entirely inaccurately. I start to question my life choices but I am swept along by the hysteria.
Saturday, 8am: It’s showtime. I’m moved by Ticketmaster from the waiting room into the queue, a silent drum roll plays in my head as I wait to find out where I am in said queue. I am confident I will be higher up than I was for Taylor Swift when I started out with more than 65,000 people ahead of me.
Saturday, 8.01am: 138,393rd. I do some maths. If each of them buys just one ticket and only 20,000 tickets were sold during the presale I am still in with a shout. There is still hope.
I am entering the first stage of grief – denial.
Saturday, 8.03am: This is an outrage. How dare Ticketmaster treat me like this. Me! The man who has been lecturing the nation for days on how best to secure Oasis tickets. I think it is England’s fault. How dare they all be allowed buy tickets to a concert in Croke Park a full hour before the tickets for their own country go on sale. It is an outrage.
I have reached anger.
Saturday, 8.30am: I am slowly shuffling up the line but there are still more than 100,000 people ahead of me. I can’t go on, I will go on. Are all the tickets gone? They must be gone. No, wait. A message from Ticketmaster has popped up. It is telling me to hang tight. There are still tickets, there is still a chance. I wonder if I hit refresh? Maybe if I open a new browser I will get into a better position. There must be something I can do?
Bargaining.
Saturday, 9.57am: It is over. There are still 84,655 people waiting ahead of me and the queue is moving spirit crushingly slowly – although a lot faster than it was an hour ago. There might be tickets left but if there are they will cost more than €400 because there is, in fact, the dynamic pricing model so beloved of accountants. Standing tickets that cost less than €200 at the start of the day are now going for twice that.
I realise that I don’t have that kind of cash and even if I did I wouldn’t spend it on Oasis. I have wasted my Saturday morning and could still be in bed like the rest of my family. But here I am all alone on my couch with nothing to show for it.
My tour of the stages of grief has brought me to depression.
Saturday, 11.35am: The sun is shining. I have finally reached the top of the queue but I have lost interest. And not keen to endorse the pricing model adopted by the band and their promoters. I miss the days when tickets were a certain amount and that’s the end of it. I’m happy for all the fans who got their tickets – no matter how they paid and I hope they have a great old time at the concerts but I won’t be there and I am fine with that. I won’t look back in anger. Acceptance but not acquiescence.