The recent sale of tickets for Oasis’ 2025 reunion tour was “the largest sale in history” with “the greatest demand in history,” Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino said.

Appearing at Bloomberg’s Screentime conference in Los Angeles on Wednesday (October 9), Rapino also revealed that Ticketmaster – Live Nation’s ticketing division – was attacked by “multi-billion” bots during the sale.

He also said scalpers were selling $6,000 Tickets for Oasis shows – even before ticket sales have officially opened.

Bots – fast, automated programs that purchase large quantities of tickets as soon as they go on sale – have been a problem for the live music industry and music fans since ticket sales moved online, and Ticketmaster has often taken the blame taken when ordinary ticket buyers discovered that a concert was sold out just minutes after tickets went on sale.

“They are a $12 billion professional corporation trying to win seats. So it’s an arms race where we’re trying to stop them, not let them in the door and take away their tickets,” Rapino said.

To this end, Ticketmaster has implemented measures to stop bots, including, but not limited to, requiring ticket buyers to log in before selling a ticket.

Last year, Rapino said that Ticketmaster’s efforts to stop bots were the reason for the ticket system’s infamous collapse when tickets went on sale Taylor Swift‘s The Eras Tour.

Similar to this incident, the recent sale of Oasis tickets has also caused frustration and criticism of Ticketmaster among fans. Many ticket buyers were unhappy with the “dynamic pricing system” used to sell tickets for Oasis’ shows in the UK.

Dynamic pricing adjusts ticket prices in real time based on demand, and in the Oasis sale, prices for some tickets more than doubled during the sale.

Ticketmaster’s dynamic pricing model is now the subject of an investigation by the UK competition regulator.

Earlier this month, Oasis announced that dynamic pricing would not be used in ticket sales for its North American tour next summer.

In a statement on

“When unprecedented ticket demand (where the entire tour could be sold many times over by the time tickets go on sale) is combined with technology that cannot meet that demand, it loses effectiveness and may result in an unacceptable experience for fans. The band’s X account stated.

Appearing at the Bloomberg conference, Rapino noted that Ticketmaster’s system handled ticket sales well for Oasis.

“We have the best platform in the world. It’s very hard when 10 billion bots break into your system at the start of sales to steal your tickets… I’m so glad the system didn’t go down. We stopped them. We made it.”

Here are three other things Rapino said at the Bloomberg conference:

Scalpers sold $6,000 worth of Oasis tickets before they even went on sale – which is why the secondary market needs reform

Rapino and Live Nation have long pushed for reforms to the secondary ticketing market — the industry term used to describe ticket resellers such as scalpers and reseller platforms StubHub.

Rapino proposed a rule that would limit the prices resellers could charge for tickets 20% above the original ticket price.

“It’s frustrating for the fan when they spend $4,000 Bruce Springsteen says, ‘You know what, I just want to charge $300 for the front row.’ But no, it’s not the fan who gets it for $300, it’s the bot, and then they charge you $3,000,” Rapino said.

He said the secondary market was selling Oasis tickets $6,000 per piece, even before they went on sale. This is the result of “speculative ticketing” – resellers selling tickets they don’t even own yet, and assuming they’ll get their hands on those tickets (possibly via bots) when they go on sale.

“You go to SeatGeek or StubHub, it’s like ‘Buy now! Limited tickets available!’ They don’t even have tickets…So the fans are confused,” Rapino said.

(Speculative ticket sales are now in the crosshairs of lawmakers: Last spring, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Transparency in Charges for Key Events Ticketing (TICKET) Act, which, among other things, would ban speculative ticket sales.)

“You shouldn’t have a middleman who has nothing invested in the business and is making money from it.”

Michael Rapino, Live Nation

Rapino has long argued that the solution to the bot and scalper problems is to let prices rise to the level the market allows, just as other companies do – but he recognizes that in the live music business is unrealistic.

“If you really want to fix the problem, just charge market prices. Then there is no secondary. Well, artists won’t do that because they’re worried about their fans. So they will be sacrificing revenue, which is unprecedented for businesses,” Rapino said.

“You shouldn’t have a middleman who has nothing invested in the business and is making money from it. So we would like to regulate it in some way and limit it to 20%. Some people can (still) make a little money,” but artists and promoters will get “the biggest part,” Rapino suggested.

Artists are brand managers, and “as a brand manager… you can’t charge $3,000 for the front row and look your fan in the face. “The problem is that scalpers and everyone else have done that,” he said.

“This artist looks at SeatGeek and StubHub every day and says, ‘Oh my God, some scalper is making four thousand dollars a ticket, and I’m paying all the costs, me, the artist… Ninety percent of what they’re spending.’ Making money in life comes from the streets, so it’s their financial business.”

Rapino said the challenge for artists and the live music business is “finding the boundary where (concerts) are accessible, (where) the fan feels connected to (the artist).”

Artists don’t feel like they’re exploiting their fans, but prices are going up “and that’s causing a lot of social messaging and tension that’s going on…What’s the right price (where) can you resupply and keep the fans happy?”

Live Nation wouldn’t exist today if Ticketmaster hadn’t bought it

Not surprisingly, the US Department of Justice’s antitrust lawsuit against Live Nation and Ticketmaster came up during the conference.

Rapino and Live Nation have argued that their company is not a monopoly, citing the fact that Live Nation does not have the large margins that a monopolist can extract from the market and the fact that Ticketmaster does not set the prices for tickets.

But at the Bloomberg conference, Rapino made a unique argument for why Live Nation’s acquisition of Ticketmaster was a good business move: He suggested that if Live Nation hadn’t made that move, Live Nation might not exist at all today.

Before buying Ticketmaster, Live Nation was a relatively small company and “the promoters weren’t talking about us. You wouldn’t even have to answer my call,” Rapino said.

“If I hadn’t bought Ticketmaster 12 or 13 years ago and remained the middleman… I wouldn’t be here today.”

Michael Rapino, Live Nation

“When we started building, I said to the board, ‘Man, we need to go direct to consumer,'” he said. If Live Nation remains a business-to-business company, “we’re going to get screwed.” The artists will take all the money and (also) whoever knows the customer well…”

“If I hadn’t bought Ticketmaster 12 or 13 years ago and remained the middleman… I wouldn’t be here today. The business we would have been would have been over because you couldn’t survive as a single-minded promoter. They had to build a business.

“We have 900 sponsors. I wouldn’t have 900 sponsors if I didn’t own the customer, didn’t own the data and didn’t understand the customer… That’s why I’m proud of the journey we’ve taken.”

Live Nation will not be expanding into China any time soon

In recent years, Live Nation has focused on expansion outside its home market of the United States and has aggressively moved into Asia and Latin America, where it has been building its own venues – due to a lack of suitable venues, according to Live Nation executives for artists who create a “white space” for the company to fill.

At the Bloomberg event, Rapino pointed to a number of markets that he believes have above-average potential for Live Nation’s future – namely Africa and India.

“We believe Africa is going to be big business,” he said.

And as for India? “We just sold out Lollapalooza in India for the first time in history. Three Coldplay stadiums in one second.”

“I don’t want to play with China… They don’t let most artists in because they censor all the lyrics. Not a good deal.”

Michael Rapino, Live Nation

He pointed out that in these developing markets, concert tickets are now sold at prices comparable to those in Western countries.

“It used to be that you might be able to play in these markets, but you would have to charge a lot less.” But now “these stadiums generate about the same gross revenue as Detroit… There is demand from Asia, Latin America and the Middle East Consumers.” The prices are there.

“There are no other structures… We are talking about building because most of these countries have football stadiums. They don’t have an NBA or NHL team, so they probably don’t have arenas and great venues. But it’s coming.”

As for the markets Rapino doesn’t want to enter?

“I don’t want to go to China. “It’s too hard,” he said. “They don’t let most artists in because they censor all the lyrics. Not a good deal.”Music business worldwide