The popularity of ticket/album bundles is continuing to rise, with their impact increasingly evident on the UK chart.

In a major retail development, recent album incentive presales for Sam Smith and Liam Gallagher’s arena tours, ticketed by Ticketmaster, helped drive already stellar week one sales for their respective chart-topping LPs.

All packages must comply with Official Charts Company rules in order to remain chart-eligible, an issue that proved critical in Michael Ball & Alfie Boe’s Together Again pipping Stereophonics’ Scream ...