How Oasis fans bought tickets for Knebworth and their cost

We all know that anxious feeling of trying to buy tickets to a popular event. The nail-biting wait, long queues and fear of missing out. But for many Oasis fans hoping to secure tickets on Saturday for the band’s long-awaited reunion tour next year, the experience is nothing new.

In 1996, two-and-a-half million people applied to watch Oasis play across two nights at Knebworth Park, near Stevenage, in Hertfordshire.

In less than 24 hours, 250,000 tickets, costing £22.50 each, had sold out.

The gigs became the biggest the UK had ever seen and went on to be considered Brit Pop’s crowning moment.

This was a time when very few people had mobile phones and no tickets were sold online. So how did fans get hold of them?

“The phone lines opened early morning and there was an army of mums doing the heavy lifting in our road, redialling again and again to ensure we got the tickets,” says Peter Aitken, who in 1996 was an A-level student living with parents in Coventry.

“One of the mums struck gold mid-morning and got four tickets including coach travel and that was enough to cover us all.”

Peter, now 46, who lives in St Albans in Hertfordshire, says he went to the gig with three school friends.

He is now hoping to see Oasis for a third time, having entered the ballot earlier this week for their world tour.

“The new system should be better,” he adds.

“I don’t know which is worse – waiting for a phone to be answered or seeing tickets on the internet disappearing before your eyes as you try to book them.”

Fans buying tickets or arranging coach travel to Knebworth were able to call three 24-hour hotlines.

Sixteen local box offices in major towns and cities across England and Wales were also licensed to sell tickets – but only accepted cash or cheque.

“I came of age in the Brit Pop era and Oasis was always my absolute number one,” says Katherine French, a 42-year-old marketing exec in London.

“When the tickets for Knebworth came out I remember constantly being on the phone… and then your parents would get annoyed because you were taking up the phone line because that’s how it worked back then.

Katherine says she was about 15-year-old in the summer of 1996 and was worried her dad would not let her go to the gig.

She went with her friend Kirsty and Kirsty’s mum.

“It’s difficult to compare whether the hype before getting tickets was as big back then because we live in a day and age with social media and everything’s online, and you know what people are talking about,” she says.

“I have no doubt the conversation was the same, you just didn’t hear it, and it was just among your peer groups and your friends because there was no way of talking about it.

“My mum found my Knebworth ticket a few months ago in the loft and said ‘should I throw this away?’ I was like ‘no, no’.”

Katherine has entered the ballot for the reunion tour.

“I’m going to get a ticket, like that’s not an option,” she says. “It’s just how that comes about.”

Support acts at Knebworth included The Chemical Brothers, Ocean Colour Scene, Manic Street Preachers and The Prodigy.

It took 3,000 crew members to stage the concerts.

Kelvin Brierley, 51, an Oasis solo tribute act from Liverpool, describes Knebworth as the “greatest gig experience of my life”.

His friend bought tickets over the phone while he worked at Pontins in Blackpool.

“I just got the phone call saying ‘listen, I got some tickets’,” he says.

“You know, tickets that you could keep hold of – not an e-ticket or none of that, physical tickets.

“The gig is just memories for me now because people didn’t have camera phones back then. People were just living in the moment.”

Kelvin has also entered the ballot for next year’s tour.

“It’s going to be a different experience for me this many years on,” he says.

“I’m gonna be the same as everybody else, holding my phone up and capturing more memories.”

Tickets for the reunion tour go on sale at 09:00 BST on Saturday.