‘A scam from the beginning’: How online resellers used deceptive ticketing to sell Oasis concert tickets before they even went on sale

Tickets for the hotly anticipated Oasis shows at Rogers Stadium in Toronto are officially on sale as of Thursday afternoon, but online reselling websites have been hawking seats for exorbitant prices for days. 
Prior to the official presale, VividSeats, StubHub, and GameTime listed tickets from $1,150 to $11,000.
On Thursday morning, Oasis warned fans to beware of fake Oasis tickets in a post shared on X. The statement emphasized that Ticketmaster was the only official reseller. 
So what exactly was going on with these online resellers?
According to Dan Wall, the executive vice-president, corporate and regulatory affairs, of Live Nation Entertainment, these sites are engaged in ”speculative ticketing,” a practice by which scalpers or unofficial sellers list tickets that they haven’t actually purchased, in the hopes that they will eventually be able to find tickets to provide to buyers. 
“They’re creating a sort of futures market — an unregulated, fraudulent futures market — by taking advantage of fans,” Wall told the Star. “People are getting really excited and they’re willing to pay more, because they’re worried about scarcity.”
Ticket sellers, Wall explained, will commonly list what appear to be legitimate listings, complete with venue seating maps and the ability to choose specific rows and sections. However, it is highly unlikely that those brokers will be able to purchase the seats they are promising, which means fans will end up with different tickets than the ones they paid for. “It’s a scam from the beginning,” said Wall.
Speculative ticketing, Wall emphasized, is not limited to the Oasis tour. “This is something that happens almost every time that a significant tour is announced.”
The practice is illegal in Ontario, according to the 2017 Ticket Sales Act: “No person shall make a ticket available for sale if the ticket is not in the person’s possession or control.”
But Wall said there is very little in the way of enforcement: “Hardly any that I can think of.” 
Officially, VividSeats, StubHub and GameTime all prohibit sellers from listing tickets that are not actually in their possession. 
According to StubHub’s official Seller’s Policies, “Listing or selling speculative tickets on our Site is not allowed and may result in account suspension, fees, charges or other consequences.” GameTime’s Terms of Service Agreement states that ”(a) my API Seller caught speculating listings will be banned from listing on our platform.”
But Wall said that while resellers may prohibit speculative ticketing, it’s not in their interest to enforce such rules.
“In the U.S., there have been efforts to pass ironclad legislation prohibiting speculative ticketing, but Vivid, SeatGeek and StubHub are constantly lobbying to have it watered down so that the practice can still exist in some form.”
Kevin Callahan, head of North America government relations with StubHub, told the Star that Live Nation Entertainment “has chosen to offer an incomplete view to consumers and the industry.”
“Identifying speculative listings can be challenging due to limited visibility into how tickets are allocated, sold and distributed by primary sellers,” he said. “Many industry stakeholders, season ticket holders and professional resellers have access to tickets long before public sales begin. When we receive reports of speculative listings, we investigate and take appropriate action to uphold our policies and ensure our customers are protected.”
However, Ticketmaster confirmed to the Star that no tickets have been sold, allocated or distributed ahead of the Oct. 3 presale.
“It is impossible for the hundreds of resale listings online for OASIS LIVE ’25 to be legitimate,” reads a statement provided to the Star. “While teams have the right to offer their season ticket members a limited number of tickets, Ticketmaster does NOT facilitate advance sales to industry stakeholders or professional resellers.”
According to a statement provided by Gametime to the Star, “Gametime is a third-party ticket seller marketplace that doesn’t hold any inventory. Therefore, the listings you see come from our contracted verified sellers, who have ensured they will be able to fulfil them.” 
VividSeats did not respond to the Star’s request for comment.
On Tuesday, the National Independent Venue Association (NIVA) — a national trade association representing thousands of independent live entertainment venues, festivals and promoters — issued a letter to U.S. Congress calling for a hearing to investigate the proliferation of deceptive practices that defraud fans.
”The letter highlights the alarming evidence of at least 9,000 fake tickets already listed for sale for the highly anticipated U.S. shows of Oasis, despite the fact that the promoter has yet to make U.S. tickets available for anyone to purchase until Oct. 4, with presale tickets going live October 3. Not only are these tickets fake, they are estimated to be exceedingly higher than the face value of real tickets,” the letter states.
Last year, Live Nation — the events promoter and venue operator that is building the 50,000 seat stadium at the former site of Downsview Airport — declared its support for a “fair ticketing act,” which would push Congress to make speculative ticket selling illegal in the United States.
It’s unclear how much tickets to the Oasis shows, taking place on Aug. 24 and Aug. 25 next summer, will cost. Earlier this week, the band announced that they will not be using Ticketmaster’s “dynamic pricing model” for the North American leg of the tour.
That model, also known as surge pricing, is a business strategy that pushes up prices in response to high demand. Dynamic pricing was used for the sale of Oasis tickets for the U.K. and Ireland shows, leading many fans to spend more than twice the ticket’s face value.
“It is widely accepted that dynamic pricing remains a useful tool to combat ticket touting and keep prices for a significant proportion of fans lower than the market rate and thus more affordable,” the band’s management wrote in a statement.
“But, when unprecedented ticket demand (where the entire tour could be sold many times over at the moment tickets go on sale) is combined with technology that cannot cope with that demand, it becomes less effective and can lead to an unacceptable experience for fans.”
Last March, Live Nation Entertainment president and chief financial officer Joe Berchtold blamed speculative pricing for the troubles music fans face trying to buy tickets. 
Berchtold said during an interview that though speculative ticketing is legal in the United States, it would be considered a “deceptive” practice for any other industry.
“They’re selling a ticket that they don’t have, and they’re betting that when that on-sale happens on Friday, they can use bots, swoop in and buy tickets to fulfil the order,” he said. “And if they can’t fulfil it, they’ll refund you. No harm for them. But that’s not clear to the fans.”