Acoustic Dylan tickets are gone in 60 seconds

The promoters of a Bob Dylan acoustic concert in Dublin next week would "welcome any investigation into the way the tickets were sold".

"Everything was above board," said Mr Bren Berry, spokesman for the Vicar Street venue where Bob Dylan is to give an acoustic performance on Wednesday, September 13th. Tickets for the concert sold out in 55 seconds yesterday morning.

The concert, which was announced on 2FM's E Radio's Gerry Ryan Show last week, will be in front of an audience of 900 - the smallest audience Dylan will play before on this tour. This, he said, was reflected in the enormous interest in the concert. "When you have 40,000 people chasing less than 1,000 tickets there is going to be a fast sell-out," he said.

However, Fianna Fail TD Mr Dick Roche said the process by which the tickets had been distributed appeared "to have been very unfair".

He said: "Some people who had queued for tickets outside HMV from 5 a.m. this morning found they were sold out as did the hundreds of fans who tried to get through on the Ticketmaster phoneline."

One fan who got lucky was Mr Ian O'Riordan, who secured two of the coveted pieces of cardboard, for £37.50 each, after a four-hour queue on Dublin's Grafton Street. Having risen at 5 a.m. yesterday, he got to HMV at about 6 a.m.

"There were already about 20 people there; most had been queueing overnight. I suppose they opened the doors at about 9.30. I'd say the Grafton Street branch is the best because they have three registers and as soon as it hit 10 o'clock, they started printing off the tickets."

He estimated about 30 tickets were sold in the Grafton Street shop, adding that he was offered £500 for his tickets by someone further back in the queue who had missed out. "I told him no way," he said.

Mr Berry said the tickets were sold in the normal manner. Ticketmaster operated from a central computer which outlets log on to as ticket orders come in. There were about 40 to 50 outlets around the State as well as those in Dublin.

So everyone had an equal chance of getting a ticket, said Mr Berry. He said tickets were purchased at outlets and on the phone lines, where there were 100 operators.

He said the Internet site was not very successful on this occasion, with just two tickets secured on-line.

Dylan will also play the Point Depot on Thursday, September 14th.