Oasis Reunion Tour: Fans to Spend £1.06 Billion on Tickets, Merchandise and Travel
A recent study by Barclays’ Wonderwallets has predicted that fans of the iconic British rock band Oasis will spend a combined £1.06 billion on tickets, merchandise, and travel for their highly anticipated reunion tour this summer. This figure surpasses the estimated £997 million that will be spent on the UK leg of Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour 2024.
According to the report, the average Oasis fan is expected to spend around £766.22, slightly less than Swifties, who are expected to spend an average of £848.30. However, with Oasis playing more stops, the overall expenditure is expected to be higher.
The Manchester Evening News spoke to fans in the city centre to gauge their excitement and spending plans for the tour. Sean Egan, 51, from Leeds, is one of the fans who managed to get tickets for the Edinburgh show in August. He spent £160 on tickets, but is paying £400 for a Premier Inn hotel room, which he described as a "stinger".
"I was very fortunate to get the tickets for that price," he said. "It did happen for some people, not everybody went through the same frustrations. But if they turn up and if they’re decent, it’ll be worth it. My lad’s 17, and he’s really into it now, so it’s one of those things that has brought people together."
Frank Oldham, 30, a Manchester resident who works at the Oasis memorabilia store Microdot, spent £299 on tickets for one of the Heaton Park shows in July. He told the Manchester Evening News that he had some redundancy money from a previous job and thought it was an opportunity he couldn’t miss.
"I do sometimes think ‘God that is a lot of money,’" he said. "I could have gone to Glastonbury for that amount of money. But because of what Oasis meant to me in my youth, it feels like an opportunity I wouldn’t have got."
The reunion tour will see Oasis play a series of gigs in the UK, followed by a world tour that will take them to Canada, the United States, Mexico, South Korea, Japan, Australia, Argentina, Chile, and Brazil.
For some fans, however, the cost of attending the concert is prohibitively expensive. Benjamin Maurer, 37, from France, was unable to get tickets and told the Manchester Evening News that he felt it was a once-in-a-lifetime event that he would miss out on.
"I wasn’t expecting to get any tickets because so many people wanted to go," he said. "I feel like for everyone to be able to attend there would have to be 100 concerts."
Ben Ruthers, 27, another fan who missed out on tickets, said the price was too much for him. "The price was too much," he explained. "I’ve been a fan for ages, I’m a City fan, so I’m part of that as well. It was just too much."
Not everyone is excited about the reunion tour, however. Phil Yates, 68, a music fan from Manchester, told the Manchester Evening News that he thought Oasis was living off past glory.
"I enjoy a lot of their stuff but they’re living off past glory," he said. "I think it’s worth spending a few quid going to watch one of the smaller bands. That’s what I tend to do now, not these big concerts."
The study by Barclays’ Wonderwallets suggests that fans are willing to spend significant amounts of money to see their favourite band live, with the average expenditure of £766.22 per fan expected to contribute to the overall total of £1.06 billion.
Source: www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk
