The soaring cost of having fun

£10 PINTS, £350 GIGS AND £120 FOOTBALL MATCHES ARE PRICING US OUT OF 'LIFE'S SMALL LUXURIES'

- JENNA CAMPBELL

I'VE spent a lot of time in queues recently. Mostly virtual queues.

Earlier this month, I, like millions others attempted to obtain tickets for the much-hyped Oasis reunion tour.

During the five-hour wait I encountered ticket sites that crashed under the level of demand, accusations of being a ticket-fleecing bot and a grim figure constantly reminding me just how back in the queue I was.

And then something else happened. Dynamic pricing came into play. The process by which the price of something adjusts in response to demand has become commonplace for services like taxis and holidays. Crucially though, the consumer is made aware of this well before purchase.

The model is now also in action for gigs. In December, those after tickets for Paul McCartney at Co-op Live ended up paying close to £600 for tickets originally thought to be available for £182.95.

And yet, for many trying to secure their spot at the 'biblical' Oasis comeback, this was the first time they had encountered the practice.

In the case of the Oasis gigs, a proportion of the tickets were adjusted to reflect the 'market-price' value of tickets seen on resale sites. On September 1, this saw some tickets go from the standard but still very pricey £148 to £355 on Ticketmaster.

When the spinning wheel of doom 'confirming availability' gave way to 'In demand' standing tickets priced at this eye-watering figure, I knew the game was over. It confirmed something to me about the cost of going out right now.

It's simply too expensive.

In this case you could argue that pricing structures such as this allow devoted fans to see their wish list artists, but in some cases those £355 tickets will have simply been bought by those who have the means, or perhaps panicked. Many of us cannot justify or afford that kind of spending we're being priced out.