The Capitalist: City boys fight for £1k Oasis tickets as corporate demand explodes

Oasis tickets look set to be the hottest corporate perk next year, with firms already splashing out for packages, The Capitalist has learned. That, plus gossip on Charles Tyrwhitt and St James’s Place below…

Splashing out on the Oasesh

It was a case of retox not detox for hungover bankers this Tuesday: “hundreds” began the four-day office week not by doing work, but fighting for corporate box reservations for next year’s Oasis gigs at Wembley. 

It seems bankers are letting this summer Slide Away in favour of the next: one corporate box provider for the Oasis Wembley dates told The Capitalist they had been “inundated” by requests for Oasis tickets, receiving hundreds before midday on Tuesday. 

“It’s gone exactly the same way as Taylor Swift,” said the premium hospo provider. “Tickets were fetching four figures alone for her massive eight sell out shows.” The posh piss-up purveyors also confirmed they’ve already got plans in place for another six dates of hospitality in case the band extends the tour. But be warned: “demand dwarfs supply,” says our source, so “prices will go up depending on availability. I can see corporates are shelling out for the very best to entertain clients. It’s quite fitting to the size of the event.”

Corporate concertgoers may want to leave some room in their entertainment budgets for accommodation, though. In Edinburgh, the Holiday Inn Express wasted no time capitalising on the sweet price of nostalgia, with room prices for a two-night stay during Oasis’s Scottish visit quickly hiked to almost £1,500 – presumably on hopes that the band’s New Labour followers had had enough time to grow into fat-pocketed executives. And they were right, with rooms now sold out. Meanwhile, news for London is much the same, with Wembley’s Premier Inn and Travelodge already booked up. Looks like some execs may have to top and tail.

Charles Tyrift 

Watch out Charles Tyrwhitt, the wokerati are after you. The clothes maker, popular with City boys, is riding the quarter zip wave with a new opening on Regent Street as well as a fresh store in a prime location in Cheltenham. But boss Nicholas Wheeler, who went to Eton and Oxford, had better brush up his public comms.

During the shirtmaker’s recent London launch, Wheeler waxed lyrical with a colleague about their former days in the sports teams of the hallowed academic halls in front of an assembled room of media. One member of the store opening team told The Capitalist that the loud reminiscing was pretty cringe. At least Wheeler wasn’t joined by his former Eton classmate, the notoriously unkempt Boris Johnson. 

SJP VR IDK  

Pioneering technology is fast becoming a favoured way to cut company costs, with robots vastly more efficient than pesky humans and, as an added bonus, far less likely to ask for pay rises. At wealth manager St James’s Place, HR execs have proven ahead of the curve on this with their ‘VR empathy training’, rolled out for its financial advisers all the way back in 2021, presumably to ride the then-much hyped wave of ‘The Metaverse’. 

Fast forward to 2024 and the Metaverse seems safely dead, but SJP persists nonetheless. The firm’s VR training was expanded earlier this summer to include a course from the Chartered Insurance Institute – proudly announced as its first ever “vulnerability virtual reality session” (can we get a woop woop). The training seems to involve staff having to wear VR headsets to be transported into exciting “real-life scenarios” (such as client meetings) and given multiple choice questions to answer. Details of the supposed benefits of this have gone rather above The Capitalist’s head, though SJP L&D director Nicki Finnigan insists it allows SJP advisers to “connect with clients on a deeper level”. Lucky for them, as clients are paying an arm and a leg to do so, with SJP having recently come under significant fire (and regulatory scrutiny) for its hefty and opaque fees. 

Send us your tips!

The Capitalist’s inbox has already been inundated with tip-offs from column-inch-hungry PRs offering red-hot gossip. So far, we’ve been offered “tips for GCSE exams” (absolutely scandalous), “comedy shows on Uber boats” and “exciting Croydon development launches” but – and not to be rude – we’re keen to hear real scandal too. If you’ve got some actual tips for us, or want to rat out your colleagues, get in touch by emailing thecapitalist@cityam.com. Our ears are open. Until then, we’ll see you next Thursday.