The scramble to buy tickets for the Oasis reunion tour has left booking websites overwhelmed and many fans frustrated, as IT experts warned of a “huge possibility” that tickets were being bought by bots.
Millions of Oasis fans started queuing online early on Saturday to buy tickets for the 1990s band's first tour for 15 years.
Oasis frontmen, brothers Noel and Liam Gallagher this week announced they were ending their infamous feud for a comeback.
Tickets for 15 UK concerts next July and August – kicking off what has been billed as a worldwide tour – had been expected to sell out within minutes of going on sale at 9am BST.
Two mid-August gigs in the Irish capital Dublin also went on sale an hour earlier.
But fans in both countries reported struggling to access tickets, with hundreds of thousands left in online queues and others unable to even access the websites selling them.
Manchester-based promoter SJM Concerts' website, Gigs and Tours, faced issues even before the UK sale started, with an error message telling fans to “please bear with us” as the site failed to load.
Meanwhile, Ticketmaster's UK and Irish websites seemed to be struggling as millions tried to access them, with some buyers unable to complete purchases even after finishing lengthy queues.
“Exquisite from @TicketmasterUK. 4000th in line for Oasis. Made it to the front. Kicked me out. Back of the queue. Brilliant.” said one exasperated fan on X.
A Ticketmaster spokesperson said “millions of fans are accessing our site so have been placed in a queue” but insisted that it was “moving along” and the site had not crashed.
Some fans were able to buy presale tickets on Friday night after winning in an oversubscribed ballot. But some of those tickets were soon being re-sold online at up to £6,000, prompting warnings from the band that re-sold tickets could be cancelled.
IT experts warned that high numbers of Oasis tickets could be purchased at once by bots. Some ticket resellers use automated software to buy more tickets for events than they are allowed, only to sell them on at higher prices.
Jake Moore, global cybersecurity adviser at software security firm Eset, said some groups have the right software and knowledge to manipulate ticket websites, and even use bots to “swoop in and purchase high numbers of tickets at once”.
“Being the next series of concerts since the demand for Taylor Swift tickets, I would suggest there would be a huge possibility of bots being used to swoop in,” he told the Press Association agency.
In posts on social media, some people said they had been suspended from the Ticketmaster website because they had been mistaken for a bot.
Mr Moore said: “Bots mimic the activity of real users and even manipulate their location using off-the-shelf software such as a VPN.
“This is usually counteracted using bot detection software but this can often produce false positives when real users are assumed to be bots themselves.”
Adam Webb, of campaign group FanFair Alliance, said it was “really hard” to know how many tickets were being bought by touts because of a “lack of transparency” on reselling websites.
He added: “There'll be an awful lot of listings. I suspect that people won't have actually bought the tickets and they're listing them for sale.”
Mr Webb also said that on ticket reseller Viagogo, there were no listings for the shows in Ireland, where reselling tickets above face value is banned.
Cris Miller, Viagogo global managing director, said in a statement: “Resale is legal in the UK and fans are always protected by our guarantee that they will receive their tickets in time for the event or their money back.”
Seventeen Oasis gigs are planned in Cardiff, Manchester, London, Edinburgh and Dublin, with concerts promised elsewhere around the world next year.
Tickets for the UK events start at around £75 ($98), rising to around £150 for standing in front of the stage.
The most expensive at London's Wembley Stadium – which include extras such as a pre-show party – will cost buyers more than £500.
Formed in Manchester, north-west England, in 1991, Oasis helped create the Britpop scene of that decade, enjoying a fierce rivalry with London band Blur.
The Gallagher brothers became notorious for their public fights, which came to a head at a 2009 Paris festival, when Liam broke one of Noel's guitars.
That was the last time they played together, although each has regularly performed the group's hits to sold-out crowds.
The reunion tour will start with two nights at the Principality Stadium in the Welsh capital Cardiff from July 4, 2025, followed a week later by five gigs at Heaton Park in their hometown, Manchester.
Oasis will then play Wembley – on July 25, 26 and 30 as well as August 2 and 3 – before three nights at Murrayfield Stadium in the Scottish capital Edinburgh, on August 8, 9 and 12.
Two more performances at Dublin's Croke Park in mid-August are scheduled.
The band has promised sets “full of wall-to-wall classics”, showcasing the “charisma, spark and intensity that only comes when Liam and Noel Gallagher are on stage together”.
British hoteliers and pub owners are among those hoping for a boom in business, similar to that experienced during Taylor Swift's recent tour.
Ticket sales, merchandise and possible film licensing could generate a £400 million profit, Matt Grimes, a music industry researcher at Birmingham City University, has estimated.
After accounting for expenses and paying their teams, the Gallagher brothers could come away with £50 million each, he told AFP.
Agencies contributed to this report.
