The presale of tickets to the two Oasis concerts in Dublin next August got under way at 7pm on Friday with only those fans who successfully registered and received a code given access to the virtual queue.
The cost of many of the tickets was substantially more than the initial price announced by the promoters with well in excess of €150 sought for both standing and seated tickets.
People who took part in the ballot which ran from Tuesday to Wednesday started receiving the codes on Friday morning with the presale set to run until 10pm on Friday.
Many of those who had applied for the pre-sale were left disappointed after not getting a code for the advance tickets.
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Oasis pre-sale gets under way with many tickets priced substantially more than initially announced
However, a large number of those with the sought after codes were left similarly disappointed, and found themselves in online waiting rooms for long periods before being placed at the end of very long queues.
Ahead of the pre-sale beginning MCD, the promoters said that ticket prices were starting “from €86.50″ not including booking fees, but fans looking for standing tickets on the Croke Park pitch were being asked to pay far more than that.
With the Ticketmaster service charge included, the cost of a standing ticket to see the band was €176.75 with the price of many seats in the stands coming in at just over €200.
And that was just the starting point when it came to prices.
As was the case for both Taylor Swift and Coldplay this summer, there were much higher prices attached to some tickets with some that came with an invite to a “pre-show party and exhibition fan package” selling for almost €550 and others that came with access to some merchandise selling for over €400.
High prices aside, many of those with codes were left frustrated at their position in the queue. “Despite entering the waiting room 45 minutes ago I’m 9,573 in the queue,” one fan told The Irish Times.
There has been no indication from the band or the promoters about how many of the 160,000 tickets for the Croke Park concerts on August 16h and 17th next year will be sold as part of the presale and how many will be left for the general sale which starts at 8am on Saturday.
However, if the Taylor Swift ticket sale from last summer is anything to go by, most of the tickets – certainly the cheapest ones – will be long gone before the general sale begins.
The Irish Times asked MCD what the split between the presale and general sale tickets was but at the time of writing, the promoter had not responded.
Almost as soon as the presale began, posts on social media started appearing offering tickets for sale.
Fans should be aware that high profile concerts such as this one are a magnet for criminals and many of the “tickets” on offer are non-existent with the chances of being scammed extremely high.
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