On Tuesday, FT Alphaville and MainFT briefly reached a singularity:
A high-profile mistake in the UK’s inflation data is prompting scrutiny of other weaknesses in the way the indicator is compiled, as the Office for National Statistics battles to restore faith in the quality of its output.
Regular FTAV readers will be familiar with the broad strokes: the ONS attempts to collect indicative prices, and often does so in ways that are more than a little perplexing.
For the subcomponent sickos, however, there was a genuine scoop — in the loosest sense of the word — buried further down the article:
There are also worries around how the ONS handles “dynamic pricing” — where businesses offer varied prices in response to demand. The practice is under closely scrutiny ahead of a series of gigs by Britpop band Oasis this summer, but an ONS spokesperson told the FT it excludes “big-name” bands with “highly distinctive and unique abilities to charge diverse prices”.
That, unironically, is brand new information.
Dolly CPI
It’s been nearly two years since FTAV sat down to write about Beyoncé and fell down a CPI rabbit hole.
Back in July 2023, the ‘Say Yes’ singer was all over economic news, amid claims her Renaissance tour had lifted Swedish inflation, and the ONS’s finding that “admission fees to live music events” had been a key driver in that May’s price increases.
And, as we wrote back then, the UK element of this at least — despite widespread coverage — was probably bollocks:
May’s inflation data was collected “on or around 16 May 2023” — that means they will have bought tickets for a gig around that date. Beyoncé hit Sunderland on May 17, so could have fallen within the scope (her subsequent gig wasn’t until the 20th).
But the Stadium of Light doesn’t host gigs with any particular regularity, so it would be an odd choice of venue for the ONS to monitor. Which means she probably wasn’t in the basket.
A (presumable) Beyoncé fan outside Tottenham Hotspur Stadium © TOLGA AKMEN/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
At the time, the ONS said it would not share the dates, venues or artists it monitors — in line with its (not infallible) general policy. After extended begging on our part at the time, they were willing to share one bit of interesting extra information with us:
statisticians try to make sure artists are of a similar stature based on factors including the size of their back catalogue
Basically, Beyoncé’s presence (or not) in the stats remained a mystery, albeit one with an eminently guessable answer.
Let’s return to 2025. Beyoncé’s been back in the UK recently, playing a series of gigs at Tottenham Hotspur stadium as part of her Cowboy Carter tour. The big buzz around the gigs was the slowness of ticket sales, with many available cheaply (compared to their initial, dynamic pricing, at least) on the day.
This has prompted issues for analysts: how do you account for the potential impact of Beyoncé when tickets prices are so variable.
Well, that’s the thing: apparently you don’t.
Don’t look basket in anger
Let’s get into some good, old-fashioned financial media BTS content.
Here’s what we asked the ONS:
[We’ve] heard concerns that this summer’s concert ticket price observations will be heavily affected by Oasis’s tour. In particular, there’s a lack of clarity about how the ONS treats dynamic pricing in its price observations. Does the ONS have any guidance in place about how ticket prices should be observed when it is subject to a waiting list system, in which people queue and are offered a ticket at a single price?
They replied:
Consumer price statistics aim to deliver a clear and consistent picture of the cost of a comparable basket of goods and services on a like-for-like basis. Because of the highly individualistic nature of ‘stadium gigs’; concerts performed by ‘big-name’ bands with highly distinctive and unique abilities to charge diverse prices, we exclude these items from the basket and focus on the larger number of musical events held on a more regular basis and which are better suited to this type of measurement.
Reading through the ambiguous punctuation, this is big news — it means these major gigs by acts like Beyoncé, Taylor Swift and Oasis categorically DO NOT affect CPI inflation. Directly, at least, as we know that gigs may cause major disruption to things like hotel prices, cf Pink.
It’s material to anyone whose job is to predict CPI, but also raises other questions about the ONS’s disclosure policy. We asked their media team for clarification on a number of points, and they told us:
We previously haven’t gone into this level of detail about the construction of the index, but since there is so much interest from you and others — particularly in relation to Taylor Swift and Oasis — we are now confirming that stadiums are not in the index. This is because gigs at stadiums are infrequent and the bands playing them are often non-comparable.
We do, however, include tickets for regular music festivals.
So: Glastonbury in (potentially, although its system of fallow years may make it unsuitable for regular measurement), Oasis Live ’25 out.
Glastonbury, which may or not be in the the CPI index © Getty Images
Nagged further, they told us:
The live music index is calculated by tracking the admission prices at concert halls across the country, so we are following the prices at, for example, a specific arena or pub. The calculation is stratified into major venues and other venues so that headliner acts are separated from smaller local artists.
Since the acts change across months, there can be more volatility in the price series than for most standard items. However, the weight or importance of the item in the overall index is relatively small.
We don’t release the names of individual acts in the same way as we don’t release the names of branded products. We try to collect admission prices for similar acts and in deciding on similar acts, facets such as fame as measured by, for example, back catalogue, are used. We wouldn’t, for example, compare the price to see a major international act with a tribute act.
There’s stratification going on between “headline” acts and “smaller local” artists, based on whether they are performing at a “major venue” or, eg, “a pub”. But there’s also a higher tier of “stadium” acts who are excluded entirely, and we know that the Bootleg Beatles will never be compared with the real thing (for reasons that go beyond statistic production).*
This is new and (subjectively) interesting, and helps us better understand our national statistics! Wizard!
We still take issue with a couple of things here. Firstly, what if next time Tay-Tay comes to the UK, she decides to do a series of intimate concerts at the Camden Roundhouse, or The Black Dog in Vauxhall? Presumably the ONS would studiously ignore it, but it opens the door to other, less clear-cut outliers.
Then there’s the other thing: assuming this isn’t a new policy, why did it take the ONS two years to tell us about it? If there’s currently non-public information about CPI calculations that they would in theory be prepared to share, why not just share it all? Who would be hurt?
*[insert joke about Oasis also being a Beatles tribute band here]
Further reading:
— It’s possible that Pink broke UK hotel inflation. Has the ONS fixed it?
— The UK’s inflationary basket case
— The ONS vs the Xbox
— small caged mammal confessions