Coldplay - Dublin 2024 - Update Post 1 on Toutless

Of course there is a correlation.

Sites like Viagogo and Stubhub provided competition to Ticketmasters Platinum tickets.

They allowed people to buy tickets with a guarantee of money back if the ticket was invalid.

Personally I rarely used them but some people used to use them.

What you have now is Ticketmasters 700 or 900 euro offering or some scammer on social media.

I always tell people to wait, more tickets will be released or you can buy on Toutless or resale closer to the event, but alot of people are impatient or suffering peer pressure so panic and get stung.

The legislation was sneakily rushed through during Covid, politicians believed Platinum tickets were actually better ticket packages, they havent a clue, they overruled their own department who said a ban on above face value resale would lead to more fraud.

It was a pr stunt at a time the Govt needed a good news story.

While "old fashioned touting" (let's be clear, Ticketmaster are essentially doing the same thing) isn't as common as it used to be there are still touts out there selling through DoneDeal, Facebook, outside venues etc. The legislation scared some of them off but they haven't gone away. The increase in scammers on social media and Ticketmaster trying to make secondary market ticket sales a closed shop has definitely overshadowed them but there's still money to be made by selling in demand tickets for above face value and people are going to continue to do it. It's small-scale but to say that touts don't exist or that Ticketmaster is the only tout is disingenuous.

Recently I've seen them outside Vicar Street, the Olympia, Trinity, all designated venues under the legislation i.e you can't sell tickets for above face value for events there but there's a big difference between having something in writing and implementing it. The total number of people prosecuted since the legislation has been brought in - zero.

I do agree that Ticketmaster/Live Nation are the bigger issue. The legislation "solved" one problem, it killed off Viagogo, StubHub etc. but created another. Live Nation can now manage an artist (SZA to take a recent example), own the ticketing platform (Ticketmaster), own the promoter (MCD), own the venue (3Arena) and control most secondary ticket sales as well. It's easy to see how they can manipulate demand to push overpriced platinum tickets, sell the same ticket multiple times and collect various fees etc. when they have that kind of monopoly. And without straying too far into tinfoil hat territory there were "industry experts" who advised the government on that legislation who maybe had one eye on their own interests.

I think that's were the government involvement ends, they were seen to be doing something but just gave the keys to Ticketmaster who'll continue clean up. We're already moving towards how these big shows are sold in the US, multiple levels of ticketing, not just a different view/seat, a different "experience" to justify the eye watering prices. It won't be long before we're paying €10 for a pint (that would be cheap in the US) in a plastic cup too, everything to maximize profits. The artists are also complicit, they reap the rewards as well, the Cure on their recent US tour and others have shown that you can still put the fans first.

I'd say it'll be alot of single seats or max 2 for resale where people may have bought 4-6 and don't want that many after

Some €390 tickets for Sunday showing just there now

I checked but all gone. Of the experience packages, it's the only one I would consider buying if nothing else. Early access standing for a high demand concert would be great. Still expensive but better value for money than the other packages imo

Ticket price is based on promotion company (Live Nation) the venue, ticket selling platform, re-selling ticket platform and the artist. I would expect the artist to have the least amount of say in the over all price as there would be a min-price to cover all costs then the artist gets their cut. Its an absolutely horrible model and would love to see artists going solo and trying to do things themselves - if enough got together and refused to work with the traditional model venues would have no choice but follow suit

People write some absolute rubbish on here!

The big artists don't have as much say as you think as they sign contracts with the likes of Live nation to be their promotion partner - as part of that deal the artist gets a nice bonus / sign on fee and for that money they give away a % of control.

That’s untrue, the likes of Taylor Swift, Coldplay, beyonce, Bruce etc of the world have the leverage and they ensure they get every penny possible from all possible avenues at a show. The promoters are happy to get the millions from these shows. They won’t risk losing an act to another promoter for sake of % of discretionary income source.

the infamous Peter Kay car parking story is a good one.

back in 2009 Peter Kay had written into his contract that promoters had to give him £1 for every car they were charging for car parking at the arena. the promoters all agreed to it. He was selling hundreds of thousands of tickets so promoter was hardly going to refuse him.

the story goes after first night at one of the venues Peter gets his statement/breakdown of his income for the show. He notices that the car parking income for this massive arena is only a few quid, he asks where the other thousands are, promoter/venue tells him we only have four car parking spaces, an third party firm own the car parking lease and we only have a few complimentary spaces so that’s your cut of our spaces.

Will you ever stop exaggerating 😂

Firstly stubhub isn't or was never owned by ticketmaster / live nation.

Secondly with most concerts you can still go for a reasonable price <€50 or €60, yes, you may not have the best seat in the house, but in the likes of the 3arena even the worst seat isn't that bad.

Thirdly, as you mentioned it's the artist that ultimately sets the price, if you and others don't like the price it won't sell out and if the big act comes to town again they'd revise their prices.

Ultimately the price of a gig isn't all that bad, generally speaking, and to be fair we have probably been underpaying for some gigs for a long time. (Relative to going on a weekend break down the country, a football match over in England etc.)

And they havent played ireland since 2010 !!

Not enough money in it , and insurance costs ??

There's loads of different models for contracts here, people on here every time there's a big concert try to guess what the contract type is but really we're only guessing.

• Smaller bands are hired for a gig and then the venue can charge what they like (obvious example being wedding band or live band in a bar)
• Middle bands that are hired as support or on a festival would be paid a set amount for that and given no influence.
• Bigger bands have their own companies setup that manage the tour and can influence pricing as they see fit.

Most are some combination of the above, a set fee plus a "profit share" of tickets, some even get profit shares of concessions sold at the gigs. Trying to figure out what Coldplay, U2, Taylor, Garth Brooks have in their contract is impossible from the outside

How is that zero excuse? It is extremely relevant. The artists get little or nothing from Cds, Lps etc, now. For the majority, gigging would probably be their main source of income. I have no problem in relation to gigs that were approx €60 rising to around €80 now. But it is pure greed charging €250/€300 for gigs like Coldplay, Taylor Swift etc. That's ridiculous. Coldplay will sell approx 300,000 tickets for the 4 nights in Dublin next year. Even if we took an average of €150 per ticket - that would be €45,000,000. Even if they had say €15m expenses for that whole week, it leaves €30m for the band and crew, for a couple of days work. I could be completely wrong in my figures, but even if it is anything like that, it is excessive greed.

But then fools and their money. I have never seen the scenes in my work place the morning those tickets went on sale. People nearly crying because they were 100,000th in a virtual queue for an event that is over a year away, and tickets will become available.