I beg to move

That this Assembly notes the extortionate prices charged for concert tickets as a direct result of dynamic pricing; recognises the lack of transparency around dynamic pricing and the fact that consumers may be unaware that the price of tickets can be increased by 100% of the original purchase price; further notes the role of the Consumer Council in protecting consumer rights and the need for concertgoers to be informed of their rights around dynamic pricing; and calls on the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), as part of its investigation into Ticketmaster, to provide recommendations on how ticket providers and music promoters could be prohibited from engaging in dynamic pricing.

The Business Committee has agreed to allow up to one hour and 30 minutes for the debate. The proposer of the motion will have 10 minutes to propose and 10 minutes to make a winding-up speech. All other contributors will have five minutes.

The motion is about highlighting the need for fairness and transparency for the consumer and the music artist when it comes to the practice of dynamic pricing, which, depending on demand, adjusts the market value of tickets and products. While prices can go down as well as up, I have been contacted recently by constituents who were seeking to buy tickets for the Oasis reunion tour and ended up paying up to 100% more than the advertised price.

Consumer law is clear: ticket sale sites must be transparent in their dealings with consumers and give clear and accurate information about the price that people will have to pay. Therefore, I welcome the decision by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) to investigate Ticketmaster, and I take this opportunity to encourage people who bought or attempted to buy tickets for the Oasis concerts to participate in that inquiry and have their say.

Rather than entering into a fair transaction, people enter what is, effectively, a lottery process, with the actual price of a ticket not being known until hours after they first entered the waiting queue and are completing their ticket purchasing process. I recognise that dynamic pricing is used in multiple industries and across various sectors, but buying tickets is unlike buying holidays, for example, where an individual can use an alternative airline or resort where there will be a range of flight and accommodation options. Ticketmaster has a monopoly in the live concert market. Thousands of fans have been left disappointed and frustrated by what can only be described as price gouging by Ticketmaster. The hike in costs as a result of using dynamic pricing is not unique to the Oasis concerts or Ticketmaster, but it highlights a growing problem that needs to be addressed to prevent people being exploited.

I acknowledge the massive contribution that musicians, artists, bands and all those involved in the music and arts sector bring to society. The benefits are social, economic and creative, keeping us right at the leading edge of the arts on an international basis and, indeed, allowing us to punch way above our weight in that respect, attracting visitors, goodwill and investment to our island in a way that few others manage. We absolutely need to protect and better and fairly support the sector in order to allow that creativity to flourish and grow. We also need to protect the music fans in working-class communities who helped to launch the careers of artists such as Oasis but are now suffering as a result of these price hikes.

Another major issue is that such eye-watering ticket prices are not reflective of what participants in the wider music industry, particularly artists at a grassroots level, receive. Indeed, the live music industry has encountered significant challenges in recent years, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. The 2024 Arts Council research on the working and living conditions of artists here showed that 80% of respondents saw financial barriers as a challenge, 59% did not feel secure in their role, 54% did not feel valued, and over half indicated that they would consider permanently relocating for better career opportunities. That would, indeed, be a sad loss for us all.

We need to see a proactive response to supporting the music industry as a whole, and one that deals with the challenges of dynamic pricing. Therefore, in order to ensure that the sale of tickets is open and transparent, allowing people to make an informed choice before entering the queue in the knowledge that, should they make it to the top, they will be in a position to make their purchase, I urge the CMA to provide recommendations on how ticket providers and music promoters could be prohibited from engaging in dynamic pricing. I ask all Members to support the motion.

Thank you. I call Diane Forsythe. No? In that case, I call Paul Frew.

I have been called many a thing, Mr Deputy Speaker, but Diane is not one of them.

[Laughter.]

Thank you, anyway.

Do not tell me that you are into Oasis, Paul.

I welcome the motion: this is a topical issue, and it is right that the Assembly should debate it. There are times, however, when I believe that dynamic pricing is a good thing. It can add competition, and it could lead to consumers getting a better deal. So, I am not necessarily against dynamic pricing. The issue here — it is referenced in the motion, which we support — is the lack of transparency.

Add in the fact that fans are involved. They are not just consumers; they are fans. What does "fans" mean? It means fanatical supporters. That brings in a completely different dynamic. People who queue up to buy tickets are not necessarily buying tickets for themselves. The chances are that they are buying tickets for their friends or their children, and that is where the emotion comes into it. I agree 100% that, as soon as you hit the button on your computer to enter that queue, you should know exactly the price that you will pay for the tickets. In many cases, it is not just one ticket — it could be up to four tickets. That means a lot of money going out of a family home.

It is vital that the Competition and Markets Authority leads this investigation. As has been stated here, I encourage anyone who has been affected by the Oasis ticketing experience to feed into that Competition and Markets Authority investigation by this Thursday 19 September. It would be good to hear from all those people. The Oasis ticket experience has been the catalyst for the investigation. However, Oasis is not the only band, and Ticketmaster is not the only company, that uses dynamic pricing. When we talk about fanatical support in the entertainment industry, you can see where dynamic pricing can do damage. There should an investigation into it and the potential for further regulation.

Businesses should, of course, be able to match supply and demand. I do not think that any of us is talking about regulating an open and free market, but it is not right that you go into a queue or a system where you do not know the price of the product that you hope to buy. That has a massive impact. Imagine a parent trying to buy tickets for their children. After hours and hours of queueing and of their young ones asking, "Are we there yet? Have we got the tickets yet?", they get to the point where they see the cost and realise that it is completely and utterly unaffordable. That could bring catastrophe to a household in more ways that one. The emotion involved, which can build up in young people who need entertainment and want to go and see their favourite bands — their heroes — can do massive damage.

This issue should be looked at. The Competition and Markets Authority should investigate to ensure that people who work hard for their money and who spend their money on the entertainment business — they pay Ticketmaster a lot of money, and they pay bands a lot of money to go to see them — are not short-changed for following their dreams and wanting to see their heroes.

Thank you to the proposers of the motion. I really welcome the opportunity to speak on it. This is an issue that I am really passionate about, having worked in a grassroots music venue for years. I welcome the CMA investigation.

Dynamic pricing is not a new phenomenon. It is far more common than people realise. Bruce Springsteen, Taylor Swift and Billie Eilish have all used the practice, but it 'Definitely Maybe' came to light because of the Oasis reunion tour

[Laughter.]

That is one of a number of puns that I will use in this speech.

It was exacerbated by the fact that 50 million people were vying for 1·5 million tickets.

Let us be clear: fans seeing ticket prices rise from £148 to over £350 is not right, and that is less about 'Standing on the Shoulder of Giants' and more about standing on the necks of your working-class fans. The practice prices out the everyday fan and removes their ability to attend multiple events. It begins a slippery slope of making live music totally inaccessible, which is the antithesis of where we want to go in promoting and sustaining our live music sector. We need to see caps on the percentage of seats that are being dynamically priced and a cap on how high a price those seats can be sold at, if we cannot get a total ban.

A major issue in the selling of tickets for big, arena-sized events is the secondary market, with the likes of Viagogo and other secondary ticket-selling platforms. I want to see more regulation of that element of ticket sales. Scalpers and bulk-buying ticket platforms can falsely inflate the demand for tickets. They need to be called to account and to be heavily regulated, because it is not the band or artist that benefits from that type of ticket sale. Indeed, the only entity to benefit from that type of ticket sale is the platform itself and the bulk-buying platforms that buy tickets with the sole purpose of selling them on at a massively inflated price.

I welcome the fact that UK Ministers have committed to including dynamic pricing in a consultation on ticket resale websites that is due to start this autumn, with an emphasis on transparency and the technology around queueing systems that incentivise price hikes.

While I was speaking to promoters over the weekend about this debate, they told me that they cannot fault the likes of Ticketmaster. Although Ticketmaster holds a 90% market share in this space, I have been told that that is due to its efficiency, scope and ability to handle high volumes, which is why so many promoters, like MCD and Aiken Promotions, use them. However, we need to have transparency, oversight and proper communication with ticket buyers.

Will the Member give way?

Yes, of course.

Will the Member agree that 'Some Might Say' that, when people are being ripped off, it does not matter too much to them whether that is through ticket resale sites or through Ticketmaster and Live Nation adopting the very systems that touts and resellers have used before them?

Thank you very much. I will not get into a tit for tat of —.

The Member 'Definitely Maybe' has an extra minute

[Laughter.]

It does not matter who is overcharging or where the money goes: if a person is having to fork out an inflated price, it limits the number of live music events that they can attend.

I have to admit that I was misinformed about one element of this until I spoke to promoters. I thought that dynamic pricing was done at the demand of the ticket-selling platform. Whilst those platforms benefit greatly, especially as their booking fees normally rise pro rata — the more expensive the ticket, the more they receive — that practice is solely down to the artists and their management, with ticket sales making up approximately 95% of the artist's fees in some cases. Those huge artists who rely on their diehard fans and fair-weather fans being caught up in the hype to sell out arenas need to realise the impact that it has. In the spirit of the Oasis hype, I encourage them: 'Dig Out Your Soul' and end the practice. I promise that that is the last album name that I will drop in.

During a highly publicised and greatly anticipated tour by a global star, I heard of parents taking out loans and getting into financial difficulties simply to afford tickets to those gigs. Those artists are exactly the ones who can well afford not to engage in the practice, so as legislators and consumers, we should be vocal in discouraging them from doing so.

As chair of the Assembly's all-party group on arts, it would be remiss of me to not bring up the future-proofing of our live venues and the music sector in general. A recent report to the House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee outlined several key recommendations to support the live music sector, particularly grassroots venues. No band or artist starts out playing the SSE or Croke Park, and you can be sure that dynamic pricing is not happening in our grassroots venues. Look at the Oasis gigs: £200 million-plus was spent on tickets; £20 million-plus was spent on ticket charges; and £2 million-plus was spent on facility charges and fees. Not a penny of that went into future-proofing our venues. I want to see something brought in. The Music Venue Trust put an idea out before the election. If £1 from every stadium and arena show in the UK were to go into a fund to be distributed across the grassroots music sector, safeguarding our future, it would serve everyday music fans so much more positively than spending three times the amount on a ticket simply because it is seen to be in demand, whether it is falsely inflated because of bulk buyers, ticket scalpers or secondary ticket platforms.

I welcome the motion, and we will support it.

Like many across the House, we welcome the motion and will support it.

As one of the new and recently elected MLAs for North Antrim, I look forward to working to promote our creative industries, including our music industries and all the other fantastic sectors that Northern Ireland promotes. This afternoon, I take the opportunity to focus on music ticketing and recognise the remarkable circumstances that have provoked the debate, some of which have been rumbling away for years.

Live events are important not only for Northern Ireland's economy but for the connection and sense of community and well-being that they bring. There is no doubt that, when performances by big artists like Taylor Swift and Oasis are announced, many people get excited and fear not getting tickets due to the demand. A concerned constituent recently reached out to me after she had planned to purchase tickets for the Oasis concert in Croke Park in Dublin. Knowing that the demand for tickets would go through the roof, she had tabs open on her phone and laptop, hoping to secure tickets. After waiting from 7.30 am in the virtual waiting room, she finally got through at 8.10 am to find that tickets that she had expected to cost around £150 on the basis of the presale price had risen to more than £330. With many households feeling a financial burden and, dare I say it, Christmas only a matter of weeks away, many will struggle to justify spending that amount of money on tickets. Additionally, people travelling long distances for concerts may have to factor in a hotel stay for the night. It was reported that, once Oasis tickets had gone on sale, many fans had their hotel rooms in Dublin cancelled and prices tripled.

We in the Ulster Unionist Party understand the economic principles of supply and demand, which are totally different from charging extortionate prices in a way that is seen to be totally unfair. It is an unfair pressure for people who are booking tickets online, believing that they will be charged one price, to have a few moments to decide whether they would be prepared to potentially pay double. While always encouraging free markets, we must also be mindful of consumer protection, whether in Northern Ireland or in any other part of the United Kingdom.

We want live events ticketing to work in the best interests of Northern Ireland fans. I encourage the Competition and Markets Authority to intervene in order to provide recommendations on how ticket providers and music promoters could be held to higher standards when engaging in dynamic pricing.

A good few of my music puns have been taken away, but I will have to 'Roll With It'

[Laughter.]

I will make do.

Obviously, we will support the motion. I, along with many hundreds of thousands — millions — of other geriatric millennials and Gen X people, attempted to get Oasis tickets a few weeks ago. I was one of the people who, while doing childcare not very well — I was neither doing the childcare very well nor securing tickets very well — was pathetically refreshing the screen on the Ticketmaster website, to be told that I was number gazillion in the queue. I did not even get to the point of being quoted some extortionate sum of money. I was number 400,000 or something — it was not 400,000, but whatever it was — while my other geriatric millennial dad friends and I were trying in our WhatsApp group to figure out whether there was any chance of getting to Dublin, whether Oasis would announce a second concert or whether we could go to London. I give that naff little anecdote to show that, clearly, lots of people experienced that issue and lots of our constituents were frustrated by it.

I want to touch on something that Sian Mulholland said. She has real professional experience in this area. Part of the reason why there is such a huge and disproportionate commercial emphasis on artists' live mega concerts and the extraordinary cost of them is that recorded music has effectively become so poorly paid and valueless because of digitisation, the internet and everything else. There is a huge and disproportionate burden on raising revenue and making money from concerts. That means that ordinary, working people are faced with completely unacceptable, extraordinary costs, which is particularly sad, given that Oasis is proudly a working-class band and that many of its fans are ordinary, working people who are now faced with the appalling situation of going to the end of the queue and getting an extraordinary and grotesque number.

People have talked about the Laws of market economics. I will not get into economic theory one way or the other, but, obviously, there is no such thing as a perfectly free market. It is also true to say, however, that, when it comes to the laws of supply and demand and a ticket to see a band that has not played in a long time — there is no other Oasis; they have not played together in 15 years, and theirs is a particular product with a very particular value — the inherent value is based on the connection that fans have with that band. That is why the current situation is so grotesque and frustrating for ordinary people.

We also need to think about the pipeline of new talent. If we do not support grassroots music and working people cannot afford to go to concerts, those people will not pick up a guitar or start to learn the keyboard and will not create live music in the future. The other factor in that is the funding of the arts here, which is abysmal. We would have liked to see in the Programme for Government an aspiration to increase our per capita arts funding, which is extraordinarily poor, including for the live music scene.

We support the broad thrust of the motion, although 'Some Might Say' that it could and, perhaps, should have called specifically on the Minister responsible, who is the Minister for the Economy, to do something about it. It mentions the Consumer Council, which is an arm's-length body of the Department for the Economy, and the Competition and Markets Authority, which is the regulatory authority in London. I hope that, when the reports come back, the Minister for the Economy will be ready to produce 'The Masterplan' — that is for Members who are into Oasis B-sides — for how to deal with the challenge. We attempted to amend the motion to say that. It is a serious issue, and we cannot simply pass motions asking for other bodies to do things without fronting up and dealing with it, where our Ministers and Departments have responsibilities. It is true to say that, given that none of the Oasis concerts will be in Northern Ireland, there is a limited amount that the Minister in question could have done. Ultimately, however, I would like to hear what the Department and the Minister intend to do.

'Don't Look Back in Anger' will be my approach to that, Mr Deputy Speaker. I hope that, when we finally get recommendations from the Competition and Markets Authority, there is a proactive plan to deal with this. I also hope that we are serious and ambitious about properly supporting live music venues and grassroots music, because, as Sian Mulholland rightly said, you cannot, for ever and a day, separate huge mega concerts and internationally renowned artists from the grassroots music scene; at some point, once that relationship breaks down, there will not be a pipeline. If you make it impossible for ordinary, working people and young people to go to those gigs, you will make it impossible to maintain that healthy pipeline.

I touched on the issue last week in a Member's statement, so I welcome the motion. While the practice of dynamic pricing has come into focus following the exorbitant prices charged for Oasis tickets, it is not a new phenomenon. It was disgraceful that, a few Saturdays ago, Oasis fans, including me, my children and thousands of others, waited online for hours to get tickets for the gig at Croke Park, only for the prices to rocket within hours and without warning. I was faced with a choice of standing or seated tickets in the range of €400 to nearly €600, which is way beyond the range of my family and of the vast Majority of people. Colm made the important point that you cannot go off-peak. There are only two gigs. It is not like when you go to a hotel, choose an airline or pick your time to go somewhere. You cannot go when it is off-peak; there are only two gigs, so you are very restricted.

As I said, while it is not a new phenomenon, the Oasis issue has put a spotlight on it. I know that it has happened with other acts. My colleague Louise O'Reilly TD, who sits in the Dáil, has been highlighting the issue for a while.

In my case, the tickets were not just for me but for my children, who do not understand how the prices rocketed. The bottom line is that you need to know what the prices are before you join the queue. The prices should be advertised, and everybody should have an equal chance to buy a ticket. Dynamic pricing, in my mind, is not that different from ticket touting. The practice needs to stop among ticket providers and promoters. It has left a bad taste in people's mouths. The president of my party, Mary Lou McDonald TD, made the point that working-class people have been thrown under a bus by Oasis. As Matthew O'Toole said, their fan base is mostly derived from working-class communities.

I welcome the Competition and Markets Authority investigation of the sale of tickets for the Oasis concerts. I understand that the issue is also being reviewed by the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC) in the South of Ireland. The CMA investigation will look at the possibility of unfair commercial practice and whether people were given clear and timely information or whether they felt under pressure to purchase tickets, at short notice, at a higher rate than expected. I welcome the call in the motion for the CMA:

"as part of its investigation ... to provide recommendations on how ticket providers and promoters could be prohibited from engaging in dynamic pricing."

In conclusion, to anyone who attempted to buy those tickets a few Saturdays ago, 'Don't Look Back in Anger' but share your views with the CMA. That could involve sharing WhatsApp messages or screen grabs. It is important that that is done. There are only three days left — it closes on 19 September — for anyone who was caught up in this and who feels hard done by to take part in the investigation. I commend today's motion.

I, too, support the motion. I have concerns about dynamic pricing, which seems to be a polished and marketing-agency-approved term these days for price gouging. It is equally important to address the dominance of Live Nation, Ticketmaster's parent company, and its subsidiaries.

I declare an interest, as Matthew did, given that I, too, sat by the computer that day, as did a number of other MLAs. I know that Deborah Erskine and Cheryl Brownlee were on a number of devices trying to secure tickets for Oasis.

Will the Member give way?

Yes.

Mr Deputy Speaker, given that everybody else is declaring an interest, I want to confirm that I did not try to get any tickets.

[Laughter.]

You have an extra minute, but do not break the 'Wonderwall'.

[Laughter.]

You will be glad to know that I got rid of most of my puns. I think that we all had a similar idea on those grounds.

A few weeks ago, I sat in front of a computer, watching my hoped-for tickets 'Slide Away'.

[Interruption.]

Yes, that was poor.

Although this is a growing trend in the industry, we should not be focused on just one event — the sale of tickets for the Oasis gigs. Such unethical practices have been more routinely used in the United States for some time and have seen prices for sports and live entertainment rocket beyond the means of many working families. We should learn the lessons of their experience. The practice sees ticket prices fluctuate in real time, based on demand, to maximise the revenue by leveraging the opportunity cost placed on fans during a short, pressurised window. Those who use it point to other industries where similar approaches are used. The Member talked about flights, hotel bookings and Uber, for example. However, few industries can ramp up prices so quickly within such a short window and pressurise people into parting with more money than intended or planned, as a clock ticks in front of them until they lose their chance to buy. It often results in a scenario where the average consumer is unfairly priced out of experiencing live events, or spends beyond what they can afford in a moment when they are deliberately tempted to make less rational decisions. Rather than being a fair market, Ticketmaster's method of gouging creates a tiered system where only those with deep pockets or the fastest internet connections can secure tickets.

If Ticketmaster and Live Nation believe that the long and popular battle to curb ticket touts was about only ensuring that money went to the right people, let me disavow them of that notion: the average punters, our constituents, care that they are not ripped off. They care that the system is fair. Despite the huge efforts put into propaganda against rival price-gouging resale sites like StubHub and Viagogo, Ticketmaster has simply absorbed and adopted the ticket-touting model, saying that it is OK when it does it. If fans are to have their arms twisted up their backs by price gougers, it makes no difference to them whether their hard-earned cash goes to a multimillion-dollar New York Stock Exchange-listed company or an individual tout with similar ethics. I assure those who have paid higher prices for a show that they desire that there is no virtue or solace for us to take in the legitimising of touting practices; no warm fuzzy feeling because those practices are now controlled instead for the profits of companies like Live Nation. I say that as someone who has bought a ticket from a third-party reselling site for an event that I dearly wanted to see: Luke Combs in Belfast earlier this year.

They say that success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan. I should imagine that, given the numbers of those who are fleeing the ship of dynamic pricing, there will be little Opposition to move to banning in that context. In the case of Oasis, the artist, ticket merchant and promoter all seem keen to distance themselves from their responsibility for the decision to use the method.

I will turn now to the dominance of Live Nation, Ticketmaster's parent company, as I said, and its affiliates, which exacerbates the issues. As one of the largest players in the industry, Live Nation wields unprecedented control over the market. Its stranglehold is not only on ticket sales but extends to venue ownership, promotion, merchandising and artist management. That clearly limits competition and leads to higher ticket prices and fewer options for fans. When a single entity controls so many facets of the events industry, it diminishes any genuine opportunity for smaller, innovative companies to thrive, stifling diversity and creativity. Given the relative economies of scale, I think that the dominance is even more pronounced here in the UK and Ireland than in the US, but I do not have the stats at this stage to back that up.

The merger and acquisition practices of Live Nation and its subsidiaries are not merely about growth; they are about monopolistic control. Such concentration of power leads to higher costs for consumers, reduced choice and a market that is driven more by profit margins than by the celebration of live arts and culture. The US has recognised that. Live Nation faces an antitrust case that has been taken against it by the US Department of Justice. We should see similar action from the UK Government and relevant competition regulators in defence of consumers here in the United Kingdom once the investigations have taken place. There is no point cracking down on ticket touting just to have the model adopted by a billion-dollar industry. There are more transparent and equitable pricing models. A fairer and more competitive marketplace is desirable. I appeal to the Executive to work with and impress upon the Government the need to fashion an industry that values accessibility and diversity over that monopolistic control.

Will the Member draw his remarks to a close?

Thank you.

Thank you.

I have to say that I am disappointed by the number of Members who have made Oasis puns during their speeches. I include you in that, Mr Deputy Speaker. I think that we should all be above that. You will not hear any puns from me. Actually, you will not hear very much from me because my colleague Sian Mulholland, despite her numerous Oasis references, was far more articulate and knowledgeable on the subject than I could be.

I really appreciated David Brooks's speech just now. Many interesting points have been raised, and I do not have much to add. I too tried to get Oasis tickets and started to feel more stressed than you do when you are trying to get Christmas experience tickets. I gave up when the site crashed, and I am glad that I did. While the issue of dynamic and surge pricing — prices changing according to demand — and whether the Government should clamp down on that is not a new one, it has been highlighted significantly by the Oasis tickets debacle.

I welcome the way in which the motion has been framed. The focus is on the core issues, the first of which is the lack of transparency and communication with consumers to ensure that they are fully informed of their rights. It is right that the Consumer Council has a role to play. I await with interest the CMA investigation. Declan spoke really well about how, although most products that are subject to dynamic pricing allow free choice, in the case of tickets, there is no free choice. They are finite, and people do not have the luxury of time or of shopping around. People who have been waiting for hours are then given only minutes to decide whether they want to buy a ticket that is potentially hundreds of pounds more than was originally advertised. The point is that people should know when they are waiting in a queue that the ticket can go up only to a maximum price, that they are not wasting their time and that they know what they have potentially signed up to. It is common practice for companies to charge more for flights, trains and hotels at peak times or at short notice. That is allowed under UK consumer protection law, but what is not allowed is the misleading of customers.

David touched on how common the practice is in the US and said that it is becoming more common here. In 2022, tickets to Bruce Springsteen were selling for up to $5,000. That is madness. That led to legislation being introduced on regulation. How the US's legislation progresses is something on which to keep an eye. It is not a new issue, however. I hope that this moment acts as a catalyst for change that delivers a fairer system for consumers.

At the start of my remarks, I will say two things. First, I am absolutely not a fan of Oasis.

[Laughter.]

Some people in the Chamber may be lifelong fans, because they sound as though they are, but I am not one. Secondly, to many outside the Chamber, it may seem a wee bit bizarre, and even a wee bit frustrating, that we are taking 90 minutes in the Chamber to debate Oasis tickets. It is not hard to imagine that anyone who has waited for years for a hip operation or a knee operation, or an operation for something much worse, or anyone who is locked in poverty without any opportunity to get out of it, will be wondering whether we might not have better things to discuss and debate. The fundamental, underlying issue is important, however. It is an issue about a monopoly. It is about trampling on the little guy. It is about big companies trapping working-class people into paying much more than they can afford. That is why we are discussing the matter today and why time has been set aside for a debate. It is about extortion, pure and simple. That is the reason that we are all here, setting aside the puns and all.

Like everyone else here, a few weeks ago, I heard at first hand stories of people forced to queue for hours just to get a shot at one of the prized tickets for the reunion tour. Some 14 million people from 158 countries formed part of that digital queue, including lifelong fans just hoping to revisit the music of their formative years. When they joined that queue, they made a choice on the basis of the information that they had at the time, only to find out hours later that the price of tickets had ballooned to something that was totally unaffordable for many and much more than double what was originally advertised. It is not hard to imagine why those fans felt robbed, hard done by and, in many cases, completely conned.

Consumers therefore need and deserve openness, transparency and a level playing field. In that context, I am really glad to debate the motion today, and we will be supporting it. I note that the CMA is already investigating that instance of so-called dynamic pricing. We have already heard from the consumer group Which?, whose advice is that people who were charged overinflated prices should be refunded. I know that many of us agree with that assessment. I am also reassured by the attention that the practice has received in the press and from the relevant agencies. The CMA has already stated that it will investigate concerns about the sale of concert tickets for Oasis. Every day is a school day, for I enjoyed the contributions from Sian and David about the monopoly and what is happening behind dynamic pricing.

Tempting as it may be to put this solely on the CMA, I do not think that that would be right. There must be a role for our Government here, whether through engagement with the UK Government or measures that can be taken much closer to home. It would be wrong to let the motion pass without clearly calling on the Economy Minister to confirm that, should recommendations be produced, he will undertake to do everything in his power to advance whatever changes in legislation or policy are required. After all, in 2021, the CMA produced recommendations on protection for consumers buying tickets on the secondary market, but I do not see very much evidence at all of their implementation by the UK Government. Recommendations are one thing, but delivery is quite another. The CMA can assist policymakers, but it cannot implement policy. That is our job and the job of the Department. In the South, we have already seen a ban on the practice of reselling tickets above face value, and, in Britain, the new Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport appears intent on taking action on the issue through that Department's work.

Of course, when discussing those types of practice, we should recognise the huge importance of live gigs and concerts to our cultural offering. Arts and culture are the fabric of our towns and communities across the North, and ensuring that everyone has access to watch or participate in arts and culture is vital for our well-being, the places where we live and our economy. It must, however, be affordable and accessible.

In conclusion, we support the motion and look forward to seeing the recommendations produced by the CMA as well as any actions that can be taken forward by Stormont and our Ministers to end this unfair and exploitative practice.

I declare an interest as someone who tries to purchase music tickets when I can. Unfortunately, like the artists in front of me, I am forced to use Ticketmaster. For years, Ticketmaster has acted as a parasitic middle man, fleecing artists and fans alike while contributing absolutely nothing to the music industry. Dynamic pricing experts expect music fans to pay, as we have heard, hundreds of pounds in ticket premiums. The executives line their pockets with cuts of up to 30% from that ticket pricing.

The Ticketmaster boss, Michael Rapino, was named as the fifth highest-paid American CEO in 2022. He has profited off the backs of those who see almost none of the money. That foul system rips joy out of the arts and rips people off at the same time. Ticketmaster is not new to scalping customers. For years, it has been monopolising the live music market and hiking up prices with hidden fees and costs. It recruited professional scalpers to cheat the system in order to resell tickets at eye-watering prices. In that way, it can get a second cut when the tickets are resold.

The problem goes way beyond dynamic pricing. The growth of streaming services offers another way to rip off artists while making billions. Platforms such as Spotify keep costs low by paying artists pennies while they share an 85% cut of the profits with big-time labels. They pay $0·000173 per stream to artists, which is a tiny and shocking figure. The music industry is riddled with bloated corporate middlemen whose only purpose is to leech off those with actual talent. It is not about supply and demand; it is about greed. Regular people are priced out of experiencing their favourite artists and going to their favourite gigs.

Big corporations set the prices, control the algorithms and pocket the difference. It is not just ticketing platforms that do it. Dynamic pricing does not just start and end here. We have heard of pubs discovering that they can charge more for drinks later at night and at weekends. Some shops have installed digital labels on essentials so that prices can be changed on a notion. What a disgraceful state of play at the minute.

Access to arts, goods and services should not be left to the whim of the market. People are being fleeced for trying to survive and for trying to enjoy themselves. That is why it is important to discuss this matter today. The Assembly needs to protect people from money-grabbing executives and advocate proper public regulation of dynamic pricing to limit the power of money-driven scam artists.

Class is at the heart of it all. Those who have wealth or wealthy families can afford to pay inflated ticket prices. Those who cannot have to do without, but they are the same people who have to grapple with all the other problems of working-class life: long waiting lists, the mental health crisis and so on and so forth. Class runs really, really deep in the arts. Róisín Lanigan stated in 'The Irish Times' at the weekend that half of the nominees for the BRIT Awards, the Mercury Prize and the BAFTAs were privately educated, yet only 6% of the total population of Britain went to private school. Class is everywhere, and class runs deep. In our society, we need to have art for the masses, not just for the ruling classes.

I call Philip McGuigan to wind. Philip, you have up to 10 minutes.

It was an enjoyable debate on a very serious issue, leaving aside all the Members who tried to insert pretty cringey puns. It is, as I said, a serious matter. I scored out aspects of my contribution as they were covered by everybody else. Everybody who spoke got to the heart of the issue in recent weeks: fairness agus

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transparency. Is it fair to ask people who hope to go to a concert to see their favourite singer or band to queue online for several hours with no idea what price they may end up being asked to pay for tickets, should they be lucky enough to reach the end of the queue before the tickets sell out? As we found out recently with the Oasis ticket sale, they may be asked to pay a price four times what they initially expected it to be. We all used our own examples in the debate. Two people, sitting beside each other in the same home but using different laptops, could be asked to pay a difference of £300 for the exact same ticket. Is that fair? Given the contributions of all the Members today, clearly, we, in this Chamber, recognise that it is not fair.

Everybody touched on the same points, with degrees of variation. Colm Gildernew made a very good point about the contribution of artists and bands to society and the fact that, whatever system is in place, we need to fairly protect them as well as fans. Paul Frew talked, as everybody did, about not being against dynamic pricing per se, but said that, in this instance, there are clearly issues that need to be addressed. As he said, people should feed into the CMA's investigation by Thursday. Sian Mulholland talked about the pricing out of everyday fans, which is a contribution that, by and large, everybody made. She suggested that we need to see a cap on prices and that there is a need for regulation of the secondary market, in particular. I wrote down that she and David Brooks were vying for the worst pun, but then everybody piled in on that.

Colin Crawford said that, as well as people feeling ripped off on tickets, as most big concerts require travel to Dublin — given that we do not have a Casement Park in the North — they face the added cost of transport and hotels. He rightly pointed out that it is not only tickets that people feel ripped off on. Many concertgoers already face huge hikes on accommodation, and they feel ripped off on that. He quoted an example of people who, before a concert was announced, had booked hotels for a particular weekend being thrown out of those hotels once the concert was announced, and their hotel rooms then being rebooked at extortionate prices.

Matthew O'Toole outlined his experience of trying to get tickets. He rightly touched on the fact that it is ordinary working people who are being faced with extraordinary costs to see their favourite bands and their heroes. He pointed out, as did Sian and others, the impact that that will have on the grassroots music scene if it is not dealt with.

Declan McAleer outlined his case and explained the difference between the example of people going to concerts and other examples where dynamic pricing may be of benefit to consumers through lower prices as a result of supply and demand. He also outlined that some of our colleagues in the Dáil have highlighted the issue and that the Oasis example has left a bad feeling among everybody.

David Brooks went into a lot of detail on dynamic pricing and, essentially, price gouging. He said that we need to learn from some of the things that are happening in the US so that we do not see them happening here. He said that, because Ticketmaster has a monopoly, eventually only people with deep pockets will be able to buy tickets. Gerry Carroll laboured that point as well. We need to see action from the Government to address that.

Kate Nicholl welcomed the wording and tenet of the motion. Thank you very much for that. She pointed to what Declan said about the difference between dynamic pricing for concerts and other examples: it is not the same because when it comes to people who are looking to go to concerts, there is no free choice and no ability to shop around.

Sinéad McLaughlin, quite rightly, pointed out that there are other serious and important issues that people will expect the Assembly and MLAs to be talking about. Thank God that we can do two things at once, but this is also a very important issue. She talked about the resale of tickets, which is another thing that needs to be addressed. She felt that there was a role for the Executive there. She talked, rightly, about the importance of concerts, music, culture and arts in what we do here and said that everybody must have access to that.

Gerry Carroll spoke very passionately and was scathing of Ticketmaster and its profiteering from fans. He outlined his criticism of the music industry at the top corporate level and pointed out the impact that that is having on working people.

I can only speak from my own experience. Up until two months ago, I — I assume like most people — had not heard the phrase "dynamic pricing" in such terms and much less understood its impact on concertgoers. While I accept —.

Will the Member give way?

Yes.

The point about language is an important one, because not only does Ticketmaster use the term "dynamic pricing" but it talks about "platinum tickets". The implication is that there is something extra or special about those tickets, but really they are the same tickets that others have bought at face value being raised in price because of demand. Some of the language being used to mislead consumers is important too.

Absolutely. That is a very good point and adds to the point about fairness and transparency. Others have pointed out that dynamic pricing for concerts did not start with the Oasis example, but what happened there brought it to everybody's front and centre view. Most people were shocked by what they saw: all of you in here who tried to get tickets, everybody else who tried to get tickets and people who got to the point where they could buy tickets but found that the ticket price had been grossly inflated. People felt ripped off. When most people began that process, they were unaware of the situation, so there is an issue of transparency in that case. That is being investigated, and we await the outcome, but there is fundamentally an issue about whether dynamic pricing, even with consumer knowledge, is a fair practice for distributing tickets for concerts and events. Given the debate, it is clear that the view of the Assembly is that it is not fair and needs to be dealt with.

In closing, I reiterate what most people pointed out. There is an investigation by the Competition and Markets Authority into the Ticketmaster scenario, and I urge people to contribute to that.

Question put and agreed to. Resolved:

That this Assembly notes the extortionate prices charged for concert tickets as a direct result of dynamic pricing; recognises the lack of transparency around dynamic pricing and the fact that consumers may be unaware that the price of tickets can be increased by 100% of the original purchase price; further notes the role of the Consumer Council in protecting consumer rights and the need for concertgoers to be informed of their rights around dynamic pricing; and calls on the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), as part of its investigation into Ticketmaster, to provide recommendations on how ticket providers and music promoters could be prohibited from engaging in dynamic pricing.

Adjourned at 6.30 pm.