Composer Andrew Lloyd Webber has condemned dynamic pricing for show tickets as “racketeering” after the outcry over amounts paid by fans for Oasis concerts.
Fans of the rock band were shocked by standard tickets for the reunion tour more than doubling on Ticketmaster last month, prompting the Government and the UK’s competition watchdog to pledge to look into the use of surge pricing.
The practice of increasing or decreasing prices based on demand has been compared to the way airline tickets and hotel rooms are sold.
Asked about dynamic pricing potentially being used for theatre tickets, Lord Lloyd-Webber told The Sundays Times magazine: “I don’t think theatres should be in the business of trying to push prices up.
“You need to break even, but I don’t like making theatre inaccessible.
“Dynamic pricing is racketeering, really – it’s completely wrong.”
The theatre impresario, whose hit musicals include The Phantom Of The Opera, Cats, Jesus Christ Superstar and Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, also criticised the lack of funding for the arts.
“People just don’t realise the value of the arts,” he said.
“I’m not saying we turn every child in Britain into a musician, but music empowers a child to do well in other areas.
“I really believe that for every penny spent on music in schools, you will save it in policing costs related to knife crime, drugs, behavioural issues.”
Lord Lloyd-Webber has previously urged the Government to adopt the Music in Secondary Schools Trust programme which aims to make classical music accessible to students in every secondary school.
Andrew Lloyd Webber during the Platinum Party at the Palace (Joe Giddens/PA)
The trust was established with funding from the Andrew Lloyd Webber Foundation and the Charles Wolfson Trust, and promises every child “an entitlement to study a classical musical instrument on entry into secondary school, as well as tuition and performance opportunities”.
After lobbying for various campaigns and dealing with personal challenges, the theatre veteran is to set his sights back on his creative work.
Last year his son Nicholas, a composer and record producer, died aged 43.
Lord Lloyd-Webber said: “When my son died, obviously that was one of those…
“You know, he turned his own life around – which is another thing completely – but I just felt like I was doing so much that, frankly, was not me.”
He has decided “not to be involved with the business side” any more and to focus on being a creator again.
His upcoming project is a new musical based on a film, which he is co-creating with writer Chris Terrio, who was behind the Oscar-winning 2012 movie Argo, according to The Sunday Times.