In recent weeks, the ASA has received over 1,000 complaints from members of the public who have concerns about the clarity of pricing in the advertising of Oasis concert tickets by Ticketmaster. 

Alongside receiving these complaints, we have also been in close and ongoing dialogue with the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) about the issues it has seen about ticket sales for the same events.  

On 5 September, the CMA announced that it was launching an investigation into Ticketmaster.

The CMA investigation will be examining the clarity of pricing information provided to consumers. It will therefore cover substantially the same ground that any ASA investigation would address.

Given that parallel investigations by the CMA and ASA are likely to cover substantially similar ground and have regard to the same underpinning consumer protection legislation, the ASA has decided that it would not be appropriate for it to launch an investigation on this occasion. 

The ASA will instead support the CMA in its investigation and will share intelligence from the complaints we received using our established information sharing arrangements, if the CMA deems that necessary.

In the meantime, we will be writing to all complainants who contacted us to provide an update on the CMA’s action.

---