Discussion re: cost of concerts and festivals in Ireland - Matt Cooper, The Last Word

Paully D

Yesterday’s debate on The Last Word may be of interest to some:

In our Monday debate, we looked at the cost of going to concerts and festivals in Ireland.

Why are ticket prices here so high compared to other countries in Europe?

Are promoters ripping us off, or are they merely passing on their own high costs to us?

John O'Neil, CEO of Tickets.ie, Clare Daly, Independents 4 Change TD, Ros Madigan, editor of Goldenplec, and Colm Croffy, director of the Irish Festivals and Events Association, joined us to discuss this.

They also talked about possible solutions to the problem, and whether the answer is to focus on lowering the cost of face value tickets rather than introducing legislation to deal with touts.

Podcast below:

https://www.todayfm.com/podcasts/the-last-word-with-matt-cooper/concert-festival-tickets-cost-much

Ricosruffneck

really interesting discussion.

Thanks for this.

Furious-Red

Might download it and give it a listen on the way home from work.

Mr.S

Interesting podcast, especially the Live Nation / FR monopoly.

I don't think it's totally fair to compare the prices to other locations such as mainland Europe / the UK where there are multiple dates in a given radius. Where as we have 2-3 possible cities for major acts, max + increased logistical costs.

hynesie08

Was anyone from live Nation/Ticketmaster/mcd on? No offense to tickets.ie, but they're not exactly dealing with the same economies of scale as others.

Thrashssacre

"my mate is a big death metal band, so he went over to see rammstein" does that lad not work for a music website???

Wrongway1985

Good listen, cheers

hynesie08 wrote: »

Was anyone from live Nation/Ticketmaster/mcd on? No offense to tickets.ie, but they're not exactly dealing with the same economies of scale as others.

Not sure what difference it would have made.

Potential reasons/excuses as to why ticket prices are so were rounded off and very likely the same stuff would be by a rep of one of those.

Guy from tickets.ie explained for example how bigger fests here are run by festival republic which is owned by Livenation who in turn own ticketmaster, they also have run over pretty much every venue in Dublin and may also be the promoter for certain artists making it very difficult for other promoters to compete...I'm not sure a rep from those would be so upfront about the ridiculous monopoly at foot in fact.

Pity tickets.ie aren't used as much as they should be, a lot of shows where they are in play too I've heard people are still programmed to head to ticketmaster for them sadly.

Interesting part was subsides,Malahide castle was mentioned as getting them well they certainly don't filter down to the ticket buyer! (as they discussed do so abroad).

LoughNeagh2017

It's a rip off island, costs £30 to get to mid-Northern Ireland to Dublin, in England you can go from Manchester to London for £10 on the bus

Raekwondo

It's crazy how shafted we get here for tickets. 250 euro for the dross lineup EP put out today compared to something like Reading/Leeds festival is a ****ing disgrace.

Weepsie

Reading/Leeds is probably one of those festivals you really can't compare it to. They get between 80-90,000 people per site so about 3.5 times the amount of ticket sales. Economies of scale come in there. You're tying bands down to do 2 gigs too, so they might not necessarily get their normal fee for 2 nights, but an agreed discounted fee for both. Plus it's a long established festival with a lot of international renown attached to it that bands want to do.

It would be better to compare it to Latitude or End of the Road*. Similar festivals, similar sizes, similarly priced and similar size of acts.

* EOTR is punching above its weight. It's in fact much smaller.

Witness/Oxegen for all its issues was the only thing close to a Reading/Leeds here.

Anyway, all 4 acts could shift 10k tickets on their own to different audiences.

Dick Turnip

LoughNeagh2017 wrote: »

It's a rip off island, costs £30 to get to mid-Northern Ireland to Dublin, in England you can go from Manchester to London for £10 on the bus

In fairness you can go from Derry to Dublin for £11 and Belfast to Dublin for £8...

Wrongway1985

Reading/Leeds have a bigger incentive to deliver the mid 10's there was even whispers of abandoning the Leeds site altogether as some attendances on some days ended up light. As the shifts of music trends changed these festivals have done so accordingly so despite online outrage of those yearning for rockier or indie line-ups of the past the festival organizer claims they've done the right thing as it's ticket sales suggest exactly that.

Tickets for EP sell out instantly, sure they've to put on a somewhat acceptable line-up to ensure they have it happen again the following year and it seems to be working for them but they aren't working with the same incentives or competition as a R&L.

Dick Turnip

Exactly, when EP sells out months before an act is even announced, you can't exactly expect them to blow the budget on acts when it won't affect the ticket sales in the year. (That isn't to defend the organisers exactly, more to lament the goons that buy tickets before the lineup is announced.)

I'm probably just getting grumpy in my old age - I'm sure if I was 18 or 19 I'd be buying my ticket as soon as possible each year for fear of missing out :pac:

Stillill42

Raekwondo wrote: »

It's crazy how shafted we get here for tickets. 250 euro for the dross lineup EP put out today compared to something like Reading/Leeds festival is a ****ing disgrace.

This argument has raged many times in the EP thread and I agree wholeheartedly about the price for most big standalone gigs in Ireland but I get my EP ticket for 165 and see 30 odd fantastic and diverse music acts plus innumerable other bits and pieces over 3 days. It's brilliant value. Brilliant.