Stephen Mead, the former head of Ticketmaster who hacked CrowdSurge’s servers, has been convicted of crimes that contributed to the company’s downfall.

Mead previously worked for CrowdSurge as senior vice president of global operations and general manager of North America. He was employed by Ticketmaster at the time. According to the Public Prosecution Service (per BBC), Mead is alleged to have accessed CrowdSurge’s system at least 25 times during his time at the ticketing giant using IP addresses registered to Ticketmaster, between August 2013 and December 2015.

The Justice Department said Mead’s actions contributed to CrowdSurge’s downfall. He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit computer intrusion against the company in June and was now ordered to pay $67,970 (£52,000) in forfeiture and was also sentenced to a year of probation.

According to court documents filed in the U.S., Ticketmaster executives asked Mead to share “competitive information” about CrowdSurge and its practices. Mead then shared confidential CrowdSurge spreadsheets, access to the company’s password-protected information – which he was quoted as saying he needed to “screen the system out completely,” and discussed how he could “bring CrowdSurge to its knees.” Mead also shared real-time ticket sales data and the identities of the artists the company was working with.

Mead’s accomplice and boss – former Ticketmaster executive Zeeshan Zaidi – previously pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit computer hacking and fraud in 2019.

While working for the ticketing giant, Mead was promoted to director of customer service at Ticketmaster’s artist services division in 2015, reporting directly to Zaidi.

According to the Justice Department, CrowdSurge’s information was used by Ticketmaster to plan competitive responses in an effort to attract more customers to pre-sale tickets and to compare products and offers.

News of Mead’s sentencing follows the recent Oasis reunion ticket fiasco, which saw millions of people try to get tickets, with many, including Louis Tomlinson, left disappointed after a series of problems arose.

Some who did eventually get into line were disappointed to see that the cost of the remaining tickets had increased due to Ticketmaster’s dynamic pricing policy, which involves raising prices in response to high demand.

The ‘dynamic pricing’ quickly led to widespread backlash. As well as legions of fans, politicians such as Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy also spoke out, calling for a review of the policy and secondary ticketing websites. Similarly, Twickets announced a U-turn in their stance – capping their booking fees at a maximum of £25 per ticket – while Mark Davyd, CEO of the Music Venue Trust (MVT), used the scramble as a way to highlight the problems faced by grassroots venues.

Hundreds of fans subsequently filed complaints with the Advertising Standards Association (ASA) about the sky-high ticket prices. A debate ensued over whether the lack of a warning was a breach of consumer law. Fans praised Robert Smith for fighting Ticketmaster to keep The Cure ticket prices affordable.

Eventually, Oasis addressed the controversy, distancing themselves from the price increases and announcing that they would be performing two more shows at Wembley, but this time with much stricter rules for ticket sales.

Recently, the UK’s largest consumer brand, Which?, called on Ticketmaster to refund fans affected by the unexpected price increase on ‘popular’ tickets for the Oasis reunion tour in 2025.

According to screenshots provided to Which? by fans affected by the dynamic pricing, Which? claims there is no evidence of inflated prices during the sale on Ticketmaster’s pages.

Which? has also stated that it believes Ticketmaster’s “lack of transparency” over its dynamic pricing “could breach the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations (CPRs) as many fans were only made aware of the increases after they had already tried to add cheaper tickets to their basket”.

“Oasis and Ticketmaster must do the right thing and refund fans who may have been misled into paying too much for tickets that would have been half price just hours earlier,” Lisa Webb, Which?’s consumer law expert, said in a statement.