After spending six hours queuing online for tickets to the Oasis reunion tour, Alan Dick was devastated to find that the price had more than doubled to £358 each.

“It broke my heart to leave, but I had to,” said the 43-year-old, who was not familiar with the pricing model of the sales platform Ticketmaster and “didn’t think they could do it.”

A fierce backlash among fans of the Manchester band, outraged at having to pay much more for tickets than others, has intensified criticism of “dynamic pricing”, in which ticket prices change depending on demand.

The UK government said this week it would include the issue in a wider consultation on ticket pricing, while the US Department of Justice launched an antitrust investigation into Ticketmaster’s owner Live Nation Entertainment in May. The EU is also investigating Ticketmaster’s business practices as part of a broader assessment of the effectiveness of consumer protection laws.

Proponents of dynamic pricing say it helps put an end to the black marketeers who rip off billions of dollars from the entertainment industry each year by buying up tickets and reselling them for a profit on websites such as Viagogo and StubHub.

Bill Zysblat, CEO of the Rolling Stones, Lady Gaga and U2, said it was “just brutal” that StubHub users “charge ten times the face value when the artist could earn just as much.”

“Of course we want the artists to earn the money and have nicer buses to sleep on, rather than the black marketeers earning the money,” he added. “On the other hand, they don’t want to charge a fortune for the tickets – that’s a really, really difficult decision.”

Raising prices to combat scalping is a tactic that has been used for years. During the race for seats for the musical in 2016 HamiltonProducers raised ticket prices to $849 – a Broadway record, but still well below secondary market prices, which had risen to thousands of dollars.

According to an analysis by the Financial Times, the price increase was effective, as it almost halved the number of tickets resold through StubHub.

Dynamic pricing is common in larger US arenas, but in the UK, where Ticketmaster is the only major ticket company to have introduced the system, many concertgoers are unaware of it.

Live Nation has made it clear that it will continue to roll out the model worldwide, claiming it is doing so at the behest of artists and promoters who want to stand up to ticket smuggling.

“The promoters can’t wait… the artists can’t wait,” said CEO Michael Rapino during a conference call on quarterly results earlier this year.

The majority of the money from ticket sales – typically 80 to 90 percent – is split between the artist and the promoter; Ticketmaster keeps the rest, with the details varying from deal to deal.

In a blog post this year titled “The Truth About Ticket Prices,” Live Nation argued that a major ticket company’s typical profit of about two percent of the average price was “far too low” to be the reason for the high prices.

It said the factors behind the high prices “start with the economic conditions that explain most pricing: supply and demand,” adding: “We are fortunate that artists in this category choose not to exercise their full pricing power. Otherwise, they would command the much higher prices we see in resale markets.”

And while the company defended the role of dynamic pricing in ousting ticket smugglers, it also said that it was not Ticketmaster but the artists and producers who set the prices.

When Oasis announced that their tour was sold out, the label warned fans of “X,” telling them to “beware of counterfeit and invalid tickets appearing on the secondary market.” The tickets could only be resold at face value through Ticketmaster and resale site Twickets.

Although many well-known artists tacitly tolerate dynamic pricing by allowing or requesting that Ticketmaster use the system, some avoid charging higher prices for fear of appearing greedy and alienating their fans.

Smaller bands are more vocal in their opposition to the system, but they are also less likely to benefit financially from it.

However, even larger bands like The Cure have criticized the excessive fees charged by websites like Ticketmaster. Frontman Robert Smith promised ahead of the band’s US tour earlier this year that there would be “no ‘platinum’ or ‘dynamically priced’ tickets.”

Singer Neil Young wrote last year that he was concerned that “artists have to fear that cheated fans will blame them for Ticketmaster add-ons and bootleggers. Concert tours are no longer fun. Concert tours are not what they used to be.”

The aim of the US investigation into Live Nation is to combat what the authorities see as the promoter’s monopoly position. Ticketmaster is expected to account for at least 70 percent of the total face value of all tickets sold in major US arenas and stadiums in 2022.

In a complaint filed in New York District Court, the Justice Department said Ticketmaster “has a pricing team that makes pricing recommendations, including recommendations on the average and minimum face value of tickets. And it is usually Ticketmaster’s own pricing team that adjusts the face value of tickets based on demand for a particular show.”

However, Live Nation told the FT this week that “all ticket prices … are set by the tour.”

While dynamic pricing has long been used in other industries, including airlines, hotels, ride-sharing and even e-commerce, Adam Webb, campaign manager at consumer group FanFair Alliance, which fights black market fraud, said it was “not a fair comparison” to compare the use of the method in live music with other industries.

In other industries, “you expect the price to start low and then go up, whereas in live music it’s the other way around,” he says, pointing out that the race for tickets to high-profile performances as soon as they go on sale often means that prices immediately shoot up.

At a time when many consumers are under financial pressure, Oasis, its promoter and the ticket company have been accused of ripping off loyal fans who were desperate to see the band’s first concerts in the UK and Ireland in 16 years.

After the band announced two additional performances at London’s Wembley Stadium, they said on Wednesday that they were “not aware at any point that dynamic pricing would be used.” They blamed their promoters and management for the decision to use the system. “The implementation of the plan did not meet expectations,” the band said.

The band’s reunion after a long-running feud between leaders Noel and Liam Gallagher sparked the biggest ticket sales ever in the UK, with 10 million people from 158 countries queuing online.

A person close to the band said the majority of tickets were sold to fans at base price, with only a small number being dynamically priced later in the queue.

MCD, the band’s concert promoter in Ireland, and DF Concerts & Events in Scotland are partly owned by Live Nation. The English shows are jointly promoted by Live Nation and SJM Concerts. A representative for Oasis declined to comment. SJM could not be reached for comment.

“It’s a perfect storm,” said Reg Walker, director of Iridium, a security company that works with promoters and bands. “There’s still a cost of living crisis (and it’s a band) with an emotional, loyal fan base that’s been waiting for a decade and a half to see their favorite band. And suddenly they find they just can’t afford it anymore.”

Jean-Pierre Dubé of the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business said that “the classic sunk cost fallacy” also played a role. “This led to many people feeling compelled to buy the tickets at the inflated price because they had already invested so much time and effort in the purchasing process.”

However, music industry bosses say the Oasis controversy is unlikely to deter bands from opting for the system, although Ticketmaster may come under pressure to make the system clearer to customers.

“There will probably continue to be rumours about the perceived unfairness to the public and greed,” said one live event manager. But he added: “Given that Oasis is so big and there is ongoing demand, this is a practical way to make the public aware that this is an acceptable practice in the future.”

Any action by UK regulators is likely to hinge on whether Ticketmaster has been clear enough about its pricing. Consumer Protection Act states that businesses must not deceive consumers about the price they will pay for a product – whether by providing false or misleading information, omitting important information or providing it too late.

“I think there will be pressure (from consumers) on artists and especially on ticket companies not to apply price increases,” said Michael Waterson, professor emeritus at the University of Warwick, who was appointed by the previous British government in 2016 to review measures against black market sales.

“There are many ticket companies in the UK and it is not clear whether the pricing mechanism will be as easily accepted as in the US, where Ticketmaster has a real stranglehold on the market.”