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.