What's the story with concert ticket prices?
When the price of a dodgy burger and a beer was added to the cost of a ticket to see Take That's third Dublin concert of the summer last Wednesday night there was little change out of €100. A week before the RDS concert the only tickets left were priced at €75.50. When Ticketmaster's €5.95 booking fee was added, the price of a single ticket to see the ageing boyband relight their fire after a decade in the shadows was a hefty €81.45.
Days later, however, the band played in Milton Keynes near London and the most expensive "gold" tickets cost just 64 including booking fee or €17.45 less than Irish fans were being asked to shell out to see the band perform this summer.
Take that, indeed.
It's not just pop music that costs more in Ireland. The most expensive tickets for opera singer Andrea Bocelli's Kilkenny concert were on sale last week, prior to the concert's postponement, for a pretty steep €155 plus Ticketmaster's €5.95. Equivalent tickets for Bocelli's Manchester concert were selling for €130.91. The booking fee in Britain is €11.63. So while the price of seeing Bocelli in Ireland was €160.95, it cost a slightly more reasonable €142.47 in England.
Both the Bocelli and Take That concerts were organised by Aitken Promotions but the price of concerts organised by its main rival MCD are similarly pricey when compared with concerts in Britain. It is organising a Motorhead concert in the Point in October and tickets are on sale for €49.25, plus, it should almost go without saying, Ticketmaster's booking fee of €5.95. The total price, then is €55.20. To see the same band play as part of the same tour in a host of British cities, however, costs just €31.88 plus a service charge of €5.43 making a total ticket price of €37.31, or €17.89 less than the Irish price. Meanwhile, tickets to see Primal Scream play in the Olympia in November are currently on sale starting from €43.70. As part of the same tour the band play in Birmingham but tickets are priced €28.97.
Promoters are quick to absolve themselves of responsibility for the higher prices in Ireland and point the finger in the direction of the bands who can command upwards of 90 per cent of the profits from a concert.
MCD's booking agent Noel McHale says the bands work out what it costs to do a gig in Ireland, making sure to factor in higher transport costs and the fact that they can lose a day on either side of the concert because of inflexible ferry timetables. "One of the main reasons ticket prices are higher here is because we are an island," he says. "The bands dictate the price", and they tend to add a premium for crossing the water, he says.
While it is the promoters who set the prices for the concerts in Ireland following negotiations with the bands, it is Ticketmaster, the company that controls the market for ticket sales, that takes most of the flak for the higher prices. This is despite the findings of a long Competition Authority investigation published earlier this year which found it had not abused its dominant position in the Irish market.
The two-year investigation came about after complaints from thousands of concert-goers concerning the price of tickets sold by Ticketmaster Ireland, the level of fees charged and allegedly exclusive agreements between the company and MCD and Aiken Promotions.
The authority found that the company's relationship with MCD and Aiken Promotions had not restricted competition. It concluded that Irish promoters competed aggressively with promoters in other countries to persuade high-profile artists to perform here by offering them increasingly attractive terms.
"Therefore, high-profile artists have strong bargaining power in their negotiations with promoters and can command substantial appearance fees, which, in turn, are reflected in the ticket price that consumers pay," the Competition Authority found.
The problem of increasing prices is not unique to Ireland. Touring is big business and the money that can be made from a successful jaunt around the globe's biggest arenas can far eclipse revenue from CD sales. Last year the Rolling Stones broke their own record for the highest-grossing North American concert tour by selling $162 million (€137 million) of tickets. U2 came in second by pulling in $138.9 million (€117.4 million). Céline Dion, Paul McCartney and the Eagles rounded out the top five.
Internationally, promoters say artists are demanding too much money, forcing them, in turn, to charge higher ticket prices. For their part, artists say promoters keep offering more lucrative deals, which they can hardly reject, especially with CD sales falling off. Top acts can generally name their prices with no risk of chasing away customers, with the Stones charging more than $450 for top-price tickets in some cities.
McHale says some bands will insist that the ticket prices are kept low and "take the hit" while others who want to maintain certain income levels make sure every cent is accounted for and covered by ticket prices. The days when the promoters dictated terms and told the artists what to do is long gone, he says and even he accepts that's no bad thing. "After all, no-one ever paid into the Olympia to see a promoter," he adds.
