Not long to go until the Oasis tickets go on sale. It’s Saturday at 8am, right?
Yes, And no, but mostly no now.
What are you talking about?
While the general sale tickets do go on sale at 8am on Saturday there is also going to be a presale – that was announced some hours after details of the general sale were confirmed on Tuesday.
Well, that is good to know. So how do I get in on that presale action?
Ah, right. The bad news – for you – is that ship has already sailed. The so-called “presale ballot sign-up window” closed at 7pm on Wednesday so if you did not sign up by that cut off time you are out of luck. And you were clearly not paying attention to our first Q&A on this topic.
I, for one, was paying attention and I did sign up for the presale ballot but I have not heard a peep since then. Should I be concerned?
The honest answer to that question is we have no idea. Half the people we know who signed up have heard back from the Oasis website and been promised an early access code and half have not. We signed up on Tuesday and have heard nothing so we’re a bit concerned truth be told. But maybe it will all work out. According to the Oasis website all successful ballot entrants will get their code from oasismynet by 5pm on Friday so there is still time. If you – or us – do not receive an email, then the application has not been successful and it will be the general sale for you. On Thursday the band’s X account tweeted this update. “Due to a last minute surge in pre-sale ballot entries, a number of confirmation emails are still being processed and sent out. The deadline to confirm your entry has now been extended to 10am tomorrow morning (Friday 30th August). If successful in the ballot, you will be contacted tomorrow by 5pm BST with pre-sale access information. Thank you for your patience.”
[ Oasis to play three more dates ‘due to unprecedented demand’Opens in new window ]
And if I do get or already have got something back where do I stand?
The precise details of when the presale starts have yet to be confirmed but what we do know is that it will be operated by our friends at Ticketmaster. A code will be generated and an email sent by oasismynet to the same email address used by each successful ballot entrant when they first registered and they will use that to sign-up for the presale. Getting access to the presale does not mean that you will get a ticket. If the Coldplay and Taylor Swift ticket frenzies of last summer are anything to go by, there will be a lot of people issued with presale codes and not all of them will get to see the concerts.
How many tickets will actually be available in the presale window?
That is not clear. The only thing the Oasis people have said is that a “limited number” of tickets are available and will be offered on a first come first served basis.
Okay so, now if I get a presale code is there anything I can do to improve my chances of getting a ticket?
For the sake of full disclosure, you’re talking to someone who jumped through all the hoops and did everything we thought was needed and still ended up in 64,657th in the presale queue for Taylor Swift tickets for each of the three nights she played in Dublin earlier this summer so you would do well to bear that in mind when reading what comes next. The bottom line is much of what happens within the Ticketmaster machinery is opaque and mysterious and more closely guarded than the third secret of Fatima once was. In truth your positioning in the queue might be down to dumb luck. But there might be some things you can do to give yourself an edge either in the presale or when the general sale window opens – if there are any tickets left by that point.
What are those ‘things’ that you speak of?
As we have said before make sure you actually have a Ticketmaster account set up and know what the password is. Bear in mind that if you have an account but have not used it for some time, the first message you get when you log on might be a request to change your password. You won’t want to be doing that when the countdown clock is coming close to zeros so get all that sorted out now.
Anything else?
There are a few other things which might help. Get your whole family or a group of friends who might want to help you out involved. Have them all sign up to Ticketmaster and have them all logged on a different device ahead of the big moment. As you are waiting for that big moment do not overzealously click refresh as that might make the Ticketmaster beast think you are a bot and you will be booted out of the system.
So I shouldn’t hit refresh?
Well you can but do it judiciously. In the closing seconds of the countdown, start hitting the refresh button on the Ticketmaster event page until the Event Info button becomes a View Tickets button. Hitting the F5 key is the fastest way to refresh your browser. But – and we can’t stress this enough – do not lose the run of yourself. Have only one browser window open per device. If you try to load multiple browsers, you might well get an error message.
And how many tickets can I buy?
When the View Tickets button becomes available you’re going to have to go like the clappers. Select the number of tickets you wish to buy up to a maximum of four. Make sure you have the default best available option selected. If you are offered tickets, you don’t want to waste a moment wondering where you should sit – or stand.
Oh, one more thing? How much do the tickets cost?
That is a very good question. Ticket prices start at €86.50 – a price which does not include the beloved Ticketmaster service charge.
Remind me again what that is?
It is 12.5 per cent of the ticket cost with a minimum of €1.65 up to a maximum of €11. To save you doing the maths, 12.5 per cent of €86.50 is €10.81 which means the cheapest seats will cost €97.31 but it is worth pointing out that concert promoters MCD have said the prices “start” at €86.50 with a great many of the 80,000 or so tickets that will be sold over the days ahead likely to cost a fair bit more than that.