Oasis Live 25. How the biggest reunion in British music kept the photographers it didn’t need, and what it told the rest of us about where live music photography is heading.
Updated June 2026 with what actually happened across the tour.
When Oasis announced their first show in sixteen years, fans rejoiced.
For music photographers, the comeback turned sour fast.
At the reunion opener in Cardiff on 4 July 2025, Oasis’s management imposed photography restrictions that went well beyond the usual etiquette, in what has become a growing trend with the power to hit photographers’ rights and their income at the same time.
Selected agencies only were allowed to shoot the first concert in each city of the 41-date tour.
Personally, I’d been hounding Liam’s PR for months… I was 99.9% confirmed, and then in a crappy twist, I received an email telling me that Noel’s management also needed to authorise accreditation and they wouldn’t allow me to shoot as they were over subscribed…
I was gutted. I’d worked incredibly hard to secure a spot, months of positive talk with a fabulous PR who I won’t name and then the rug was pulled from under me.. I think in my whole 14 year career of shooting music, this was the most upsetting experience I’d ever had to contend with in my role as a professional Music Photographer.
As it panned out for those few lucky ones who manage to make it into the stadium at Cardiff, long lenses were mandatory, with shooters set up on a platform 34 metres back from the stage. For anyone outside the trade, that distance matters.
Historically the area between the stage and the crowd barrier, the pit, is where credentialed photographers work, roaming for the time-honoured “three songs, no flash”. Cardiff put the pros at the back of the stadium instead.
Then came the part that caused the row. News outlets and agencies were told they could use images from the first night for one year only, after which all rights would revert to the band.
A one-year shelf life on news photography
That expiry date on editorial images is highly unusual, and it sparked a fight between the Oasis camp and the press.
As The Guardian reported, an industry coalition representing major newspapers and wire agencies lodged a formal complaint, arguing the limits broke with decades of standard practice.
Normally, photographers and outlets agree usage rights in perpetuity.
A magazine can run a great Oasis shot today and again in a retrospective in ten years. The one-year clause upends that.
Andrew Moger of the News Media Coalition put it plainly when he urged the organisers to drop the restriction, arguing that news photography helps tell the cultural story of an artist and that role does not end after 365 days.
For professional music photographers, most of them freelancers, rules like these are not a minor annoyance.
They threaten a living. Capturing an iconic live moment is only half the job. Being able to license and resell that image later is how you actually earn from it. If the photo self-destructs after a year, a huge chunk of its value vanishes.
Publications pay modest fees up front on the understanding that the photographer can recoup more through syndication over time. The Oasis terms cut off any future income from those Cardiff pictures, however historic they turn out to be.
What I see from the pit
I am Lee Blanchflower, founder of More Than Just Music, the concert and music arm of Blanc Creative, a Norwich based photography and film company. I have been shooting music, concerts and festivals for over ten years.
I will be straight with you. I am not claiming my portfolio sits alongside the giants I admire, and being based in Norwich is its own challenge, because getting to the major shows means travelling to London, Manchester or Sheffield, and being based in one of those cities makes a real difference.
But 2025 was hands down the toughest year I have known for photography access.
Even working with Splash News by Shutterstock, a global agency with serious reach, the knockbacks were constant.
Worse is the number of PR teams who do not even acknowledge an accreditation request anymore. Y
ou send a professional, well-worded ask and hear nothing back. Not even a no.
It is not the whole picture, though. Some PR teams go above and beyond, and plenty of artists genuinely value what photographers do. T
he best experiences I have had come from artists who build a relationship with the people behind the lens. Danny O’Donoghue and The Script are a perfect example. They let me shoot full sets rather than the usual first three songs, and they were open and welcoming with it.
Moments like that remind you why you do the job, because when you are being blocked, ignored or hit with impossible terms, it wears you down. When trust and creativity are allowed to flow, the whole thing comes alive again.
This is not new, and it has been worse
Veteran shooters were quick to point out that heavy-handed contracts are nothing new.
Back in 2009, Coldplay outraged photographers with a contract that grabbed full ownership of every image taken at their shows, requiring photographers to assign copyright to the band’s management and forbidding any resale.
The respected music photographer George Chin called it one of the worst contracts he had seen in his career.
A few years later the Foo Fighters issued a similarly draconian release. Photographers had to accept that the band would approve which images were published, that shots could be used once for a single article, and that all copyright transferred to the band.
The contract even claimed the right to exploit the photos in any media, as the much-quoted line went,
“throughout the universe, in perpetuity”, without paying the photographer.
One Washington newspaper refused to sign, called it exploitation of photographers, and boycotted the show.
Set against outright copyright grabs, the Oasis one-year limit looks mild.
But it still breaks the principle that news photographs are part of the public record.
The press coalition argued that an event of this scale would attract coverage for years to come, and that revoking rights after a year would erase those images from future history.
Essentially, Oasis offered independent photographers a choice. Shoot on our terms and watch your work expire, or do not shoot at all. The fear among shooters was simple: accept it once and you set a precedent other artists will follow, shrinking already thin opportunities further.
From “three songs, no flash” to no photographs at all
Seasoned photographers know the drill. At most gigs you shoot the first three songs, no flash, then you are out. It is a fair compromise. You get a few chances at the shot and the band is not swamped by cameras all night.
Onerous contracts and outright bans are a newer thing, and they go well past etiquette. In the nineties and early two thousands,
Britpop acts like Oasis were photographed at festivals and arenas with few strings attached.
Many of the classic Gallagher images in books and magazines came from an era with little paperwork beyond a photo pass.
Fast forward to the reunion and the pros were kept out of the pit entirely, parked at the sound desk halfway back.
Oasis are not alone. Several major artists have chosen to ban outside photographers and hand-pick the released images. Beyoncé did it on her 2013 Mrs Carter tour after unflattering Super Bowl photos went viral, barring press and supplying a curated set from her own photographer.
Ed Sheeran concerts are generally a blanket No for freelancers and this trend of ‘closed pits’ and restrictions so tight, that the photographer is almost unable to gain any return on their work is common place.
The result was telling: outlets that wanted pictures either used the official shots or ran grainy fan snaps, which undermined the very control she was chasing.
More recently, promoters have tried the same. On Coldplay’s 2024 Australian dates, media were given no pit access and were instead handed free-to-use official photos. It sounds generous. In practice it sidelines independent photographers, because why would a news desk pay a freelancer when the promoter is giving away ready-to-print images? Critics there warned that freezing out freelancers risks an extinction event for the profession.
There is a money reality under all of this that the public misreads. Live music has never been a lucrative hustle. Images can sell for as little as 50p to an online outlet, and the idea that news music photos command hundreds or thousands of pounds is a myth.
At a big festival like Glastonbury or Isle of Wight you might be one of fifty or more photographers all chasing the same syndication.
Now add shrinking access on top. If you cannot get in the pit, you cannot do the job.
If you get in but sign away your rights, you have killed any earning beyond a one-time fee.
The solo years told a different story
Here is what is interesting. Before the reunion, both Gallaghers toured separately for years without anything like these restrictions.
Noel with the High Flying Birds and Liam as a solo act played countless gigs and festival sets after the 2009 split. Photographers covered them under the usual three-songs rule and the images circulated in the press without incident.
When Liam ran his Definitely Maybe tour in 2024, photographers got one song, no flash from the pit, but no contractual strings at all.
The shots were syndicated through agencies as normal, and fans saw crisp images in the papers the next day rather than only the official social posts.
So why would the Gallaghers, relaxed about press cameras solo, clamp down the moment they reunited? The answer is the stakes. Oasis Live ’25 was projected as one of the most profitable tours in UK history. Millions of tickets, a global audience, a legacy to cement.
With that much money and attention in play, the management moved into full control mode, curating not just a tour but a narrative. Part of that narrative is visual, and in the age of social media an unflattering frame can travel the world in minutes.
Tightening the flow of independent images is one way to keep the off-message shots out and the unauthorised profiting down.
Why bands do it: control, image and money
From the band side, a few justifications come up again and again.
The first is brand protection. The Foo Fighters’ team called their strict contract standard and necessary to protect the band, the implication being that without it photographers might sell images the band does not approve of.
Managers worry about a live shot turning up on unofficial merchandise, or being used in ways that earn someone else money off the artist’s likeness.
The second is vanity. Big artists want to look good, literally. They remember the unflattering frames that became memes.
By allowing only hand-picked shooters, or releasing only their own selects, they try to ensure the public sees the best side of the show.
Approval clauses, where the artist can kill any image they dislike, are quality control from their seat and censorship from the photographer’s.
The third is straightforward money. Tours are huge businesses now, earning from far more than tickets: exclusive content, documentaries, photo books, memorabilia. If every newspaper can build a free archive of tour shots, it slightly dilutes the value of the band’s own releases.
Limit the independent images and you can monetise scarcity later.
The backlash
The press and the photography community did not take it quietly. In the UK the News Media Coalition pushed back hard in negotiations.
In the US the National Press Photographers Association has intervened before when contracts overreach.
The clearest win came after Taylor Swift in 2015. Her original tour contract was so strict it suggested cameras could be confiscated or destroyed.
Photographers spoke up, major outlets boycotted, and her team sat down with the NPPA to agree fairer terms. The revised contract dropped the worst clauses and let images be published more than once for genuine news use.
It proved that when outlets unite and refuse to work under bad terms, even the biggest names will compromise.
There have been more creative protests too. When the Foo Fighters would not move, that Washington paper sent a cartoonist to sketch the band and asked fans for crowd photos instead.
Some Irish papers refused to run official handout pictures from a Garth Brooks tour, preferring to print a review with no photos and an explanation of the policy.
Does it matter whether the photo in your feed came from a freelancer or a PR team? To anyone in live music, yes. Independent concert photography is about journalistic honesty and cultural record, not just photographers’ egos or wallets.
When Oasis walked on stage in Cardiff it was a newsworthy moment in rock history, not a private event.
Those images belong in the papers and the archives for the long run, not vanishing after a year or limited to what the band wants you to see.
And let’s be real
Even at the very top, this stings.
The Dave Hogans and Brian Rasics of the world have built iconic careers and shaped the visual legacy of everyone from Bowie to the Rolling Stones.
Yet they often still work under agency umbrellas, shoot on spec and rely on editorial licensing.
The Ross Halfins, working directly with Metallica or Guns N’ Roses on stage and backstage, are rare air, where the artist trusts you into their world. Most photographers, even the best known, never get that.
So if even the top freelancers can be handed a shoot-it-once-and-lose-it-in-a-year deal, what chance do the rest of us have?
What actually happened: the 2026 update
A year on, we know how it played out, and it is worth recording because it confirms the fears almost exactly.
The agencies did not blink. After agreeing terms for the opening Cardiff dates, the News Media Coalition members, including Reuters, Associated Press, Shutterstock, Getty and AFP, said negotiations had failed and refused to attend the rest of the tour, starting with the Manchester homecoming.
In other words, the world’s major picture agencies boycotted most of the biggest reunion in British music.
And it did not matter. The tour was a colossal success without them. The UK leg closed at Wembley on 28 September 2025, with Liam telling the crowd “see you next year”, off the back of a reported 14 million people chasing 1.4 million UK tickets.
The lesson for every other big act watching is uncomfortable: at this scale, you do not need the press pit at all.
Then came the part this article predicted. We wrote that bands restrict independent images partly to reserve their own official photo book down the line. In early 2026 Oasis released exactly that, the official Oasis Live ’25 Opus, a deluxe book of around a thousand unseen images shot with behind-the-scenes access by photographer and director Simon Emmett. Scarcity, created and then monetised.
The independent press got a year-limited platform at the back of the room. The band got the definitive record and the revenue from it.
That is the precedent the trade feared, now set by the most visible tour of the decade. Expect more artists to look at the Oasis model, see that it cost them nothing commercially, and copy it.
Striking a balance
It does not have to be war.
After the Coldplay row in 2009, a group of photographers drafted a model contract that tried to meet bands halfway: photographers would agree not to sell images for commercial merchandise without permission, a fair ask, and in return would keep copyright and editorial freedom.
Taylor Swift’s revised terms showed the same thing is possible when both sides actually talk.
Fans benefit from balance too. They want to see and relive the moments, and they will get them either from professionals or from a flood of phone photos.
Shut out the pros and you often spread worse imagery, which is harder to control, not easier. Independent coverage also adds to the buzz a big tour feeds on.
Oasis generated front pages worldwide, much of it from the agencies who did negotiate entry early on.
Without any of it, the band would have lost some of that spotlight, or filled it with press-release images.
As an Oasis fan who never got a ticket, and a working photographer, I would argue the best outcome is one where the band’s interests and the photographers’ craft both survive.
Set reasonable ground rules, by all means limit shooting time and protect against unauthorised merchandise, but do not muzzle the press or strangle the rights of the people documenting the moment. “Champagne Supernova” playing to a sea of raised hands is the kind of scene that should live on in photographs, not be locked away.
Easing the restrictions would only endear bands to the media and the fans. After all, as the brothers themselves sang, don’t look back in anger, and certainly not at the photographers trying to shine a light on the glory.
Shoot on fair terms, get seen everywhere.
At Blanc Creative we shoot live music, concerts and festivals across the UK, and as a Splash News by Shutterstock contributing partner we get your moment placed with the press, with rights agreed clearly and fairly up front.
Planning a show, tour date or festival? See the work on our More Than Just Music page, or call Lee direct on 07871 364041.
Sources and acknowledgements: this feature combines original commentary and lived experience with publicly available reporting from The Guardian, PetaPixel and the band’s own announcements. All quoted material remains the property of the respective publishers.
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