€73 ?! thats taking the biscuit.

Seventy three euro a ticket?!?!

nice disclaimer there jim!

i know it’s unconfirmed but €73 (plus the €6/€7 extra you have to give tickmaster) is a crazy price. can’t see it selling well at that price.

Paulo – gig is unannounced hence disclaimer – that’s how we do things on OTR.

I dislike the The O2 so much that it is a significant factor in deciding whether or not to go to a gig. I think my problem might stem from the general size of the place and fall on the side of personal preference as opposed to actually disliking the venue, now that i think of it. Pity they wouldn’t do a string of dates in Vicar Street or The Olympia though i realise the likelihood of that is non-existant!

73 bats is a fair oul splurge though one will hold fire until the line-up is confirmed and the speculation becomes official press-related arituclation!

They played in London in July for 26 quid!

http://www.livenation.co.uk/event/17103/arcade-fire-tickets

That incldued 1 quid to charity!

Enough said!

speculatively, they can take their 73 euro and shove it

Ian@6 – LOL!

73 euro!!!??? Add in credit card fees and it brings it to 80 euro approx. This is a shockingly extortionate price. To put it into context, I bought a ticket a few weeks ago for Roger Waters at the O2 for next May, who’s going to be staging the biggest ever indoor rock show in Ireland, and that ticket is cheaper!!

The Suburbs is a real return to form album but they charge such high ticket prices it leaves a bad taste in the mouth. People could protest by simply not going but that’s not going to happen and that’s why ticket prices remain high in this country. If people are still going to snap them up, why reduce the price?

maybe we should stand otuside with placards. 73 euro is just shocking. Down with this sort of thing!

Even to see them and Vampire Weekend, €73 is far too pricey. Is their logic in how much they can charge Irish people somehow based on the whopper of a paydeal they got to play Oxegen?

could 73 euro be for fancy tickets of some kind? either they’ll being struggling to fill the place at that price (interesting article in the NYT about deep discounting on big shows in the US that make anyone who buys at the face price look like fools: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/31/arts/music/31concerts.html?_r=1) or we have plenty of room to hike up income taxes/electricity rates on the Arcade Fire-listening, suburban-dwelling, self-pitying middle classes. ahem.

There’s no recession in Canada obviously. The Belle and Sebastain’s gig in Grand Canal is coming in at 50 yo yo’s if you include the Ticketmaster charges. (compared to mid £20’s in the UK). Throw in the €40 babysitting charge and the night out for me and the missus starts at €140.
Will somebody please tell Harry Crosbie and chums that there is a recession in this country.

Cheeky price alright but still it would be at least €40 and €30 to see them individually. I’m holding out for LCD and Hot Chip which no doubt will be announced on September 6th.

2 bands I really like but they can run and jump if they think I’ll pay 80 (incl ticketmaster fees) to see them.

@mclovin: I got Belle & Sebastian tickets but didn’t realise the price difference in the uk.

Harry Crosbie said recently that they are only barely making money doing gigs in the O2 and Grand Canal, so where is the money going?
If Arcade Fire go ahead at that price, that’s €1 million a night ex ticketmaster fees.

Massive fan of their music – new album is really good, and I’m in the minority who still stands by Neon Bible, having travelled to see them in Brixton Academy on that tour. But this is where I’m getting off. I have nine more days to get through until I get paid this month, and I barely have €73 to last me until then. They can shove their hurdy-gurdies where the sun don’t shine!

All part and parcel of why we’re the laughing stock of Europe, being charged (and willingly PAYING) exorbitant prices for sub-standard fare. Oxegen and The Picnic will not come down in price until people make a stand against the rip-offs, simple as.

Save your shillings and go see Liars (another incredible live band) tomorrow night in Whelans for €16. Proper value for money.

i know someone who was trying to book AF in dublin way back when the debut album was just starting to break on pitchfork, and they were looking for c.100k to do the show..so it would appear they’ve been greedy from the word go

I blame the Green Party and their little known but stealthy Arcade Fire levy, something to do with smokeless fuel or summat along those lines

Well, in Europe (Spain) .. a few weeks before the tickets are Euro 35.. so that should be something to go off..

Agree with Keith. Saw an ad for them in Village Voice where if you were a member of American Express, you got priority on tickets- hardly down with the kids.

Will you still set the Kilkenny Hurling team on your source? I am angered by their unstoppable run to the final!

Assuming the prices is correct… I know the band are usually to blame in these instances, but is there any chance the promoter remembers the clamour from last time (pairs of tickets for 300 quid + on eBay the morning they went on sale) and are creaming accoridngly?

Anyway Manchester on Saturday 11th looks like the best option for me. Went to Brixton last time, the St Patrick’s Day in 2007 that Ireland beat Pakistan in the cricket, watched that in a pub full of Jamaicans. That was some day…

€73 is a bit steep. They’re playing in Toronto this weekend for $56 with support from Janelle Monae, which works out at about 40euro I think. That said, caught them at one of their comeback shows awhile back and they were great.

Funny the way Ireland always seems to get screwed with ticket prices. I’ve noticed that a lot since moving…!

@32 – No, you’re not the only one.

The fact that there’s a “name” support band shouldn’t make any difference, nor be used as some sort of justification for the higher price. Iron Maiden’s recent O2 show was supposed to be supported by Heaven and Hell, an act which made a lot of people view the show as a bona fide double-bill. When they had to pull out due to Ronnie James Dio’s ill health (and subsequent departure to the big stage in the sky), they were replaced – to most people’s chagrin – by the much lower rent Sweet Savage.
Also, I’d have thought the increased capacity of the O2 (from 8,000 to 13,000) should have meant prices coming down, if anything. Pearl Jam’s two recent shows saw tickets for the Odyssey about €20 cheaper than the O2, and the Odyssey has a smaller capacity. But then again, there’s all those staff to pay for all that beer they have to sell, which seems to be the O2’s main priority these days.

Ian – where is this coming from?

That €60 is the “inside” price which is the money the promoter gets from the ticket agency but that’s obviously NOT the price that the concert goer pays! When you add in all the charges – which the band DO control because they can make it a condition of contract NOT to deal with TM – that €60 inside price comes up to or over €70. Very disingenuous of the band to spin that. And a HUGE difference to London prices.

My industry sources will breath a sigh of relief ‘cos it looks like they’ll be spared going mano (and womano) to mano with the Kilkenny hurlers.

Sorry Jim, meant to put the source in that original post but then firefox crashed and I had to post in Chrome and forgot to do it.

Those are quotes from the band’s manager Scott Rodger’s (@scottrodger) twitter feed. I tweeted at him last night to ask him to confirm the prices.

Good work Ian. Still, like I said, that’s a high ticket price, no matter how you spin it. And the price Scott Roger is quoting is the one excluding charges which is NOT what the AF pays (it is, though, what AF will be working their fee off, which is probably his main concern).

Also MCD, the concert promoters, use TM as their main ticket agency hence the vast majority of tix sold for this gig will be thru’ TM. Why doesn’t Scott Roger insist that ALL tix sales are through crowdsurge.com and thus save fans some cash? After all, he can do this. And if MCD object, I’m sure one of the other promoters would happily do a deal based on this. As I always keep saying here, all such decisions are down to the band and no amount of scapegoating the promoter or ticket-selling agency will change that.

And, based on touring schedules, I’ve a strong idea who the third act are too, but need to get that confirmed this morning because I thought they were doing standalone shows in Dublin that week.

Oh yeah, sorry to be filling up your comment box with a string of things from me, once again I forgot to mention something.

Official announcement should be on Friday with an on-sale date of the 20th. arcadefire.com presale (via crowdsurge) should be 1 or 2 days before that.

Jim @ 51 My thought when I read that tweet was the National they finish their tour in Brixton on the 1st of Dec I think I also thought they’d do solo shows here too but were waiting until after EP to announce.

I’m not a great fan of those double/triple header shows you don’t always get a ‘full set’ from both acts. I rather see the National somewhere like the Olympia. AF are taking the piss either way with those ticket prices and like others have said if ppl don’t take a stand we’ll continue to have to fork our mega money for gigs here as the fear will be we dont’ pay – bands won’t tour.

Tickets for Germany & spain AF shows are in the region of 35 yo yos so even the 50 and 60 euro the manager is quoting is way higher than that. I know there is huge demand for these shows but 2 nights at those prices is pushing it and AF aren’t some Kings of Leon band who attract the main stream masses who’ll pay whatever. AF are niche and if us OTR readers are saying fuck it so wil alot of others.

Jim (or Ian as original tweeter) you should tweet the manager a link to this thread maybe then he’ll realise it aint cool to rip us off like that!

ian – sorry for shouting fella! As for leaving out the booking fees, there’s a big (big) difference between €20 plus fees for a five band all-day bash and €60 plus fees for one act with big support acts who might not necessarily be playing full sets (as Karen says in the next comment)

karen – that was my first thought too but I think it’s safe to assume that The National will be doing their own Dublin Olympia shows in early December.

Jim @ 51:

“And, based on touring schedules, I’ve a strong idea who the third act are too, but need to get that confirmed this morning because I thought they were doing standalone shows in Dublin that week.”

Frightened Rabbit peut-etre?

€60 plus charges is still way to rich for me compared with their other euro shows, Vampire Weekend or no, so I think I’m out. Love the band, put a lot of time and effort into them in the past, but this is a bloody rip off.

there’s a big (big) difference between €20 plus fees for a five band all-day bash and €60 plus fees for one act with big support acts who might not necessarily be playing full sets

Indeed, but the fees are a factor of the base price, not who is headlining or how many bands are playing. When the you posted the original €73 price did you think that would be the all in price or did you think that there’d be additional fees on top of it? People generally see a ticket price and reckon that they’ll have to fork over about 10% on top of that for ticket fees.

Like I said, I accept and recognise that that whatever the actual price people hand over for these tickets it will be a not insignificant amount and regardless of whether I think it’s worth it because I as an individual don’t really matter to this argument taking a broader view of things it’s up to people as individual consumers to make that choice for themselves (and people can factor in the fact that the band/Rodger didn’t go the extra step to ensure that the tickets are crowdsurge only thus ensuring cheaper overall costs for the punter when deciding that they’re good value or not, I will say that tm have the infrastructure to handle the volume of webtraffic that this sale will likely generate, my experience with crowdsurge in the past is that their system is nowhere near as robust and powerful, if they were handling all the sales and their system fell over then that’d just be another potential shitstorm coming down the pipeline).

I’m not here to act as an apologist or a cheerleader for the band and I hope that it’s not coming across like that but the simple fact fact is that the tickets are going to cost what they’re going to cost and if the gigs sell out then obviously they were pitched at a correct price from a pure economics point of view (you could argue that a sell out means the price point was too low in fact) if they sell poorly then obviously they weren’t.

I think Karen’s suggestion is a good one. Rodger seems the sort that is willing to engage with the internet perhaps it’d be worth inviting him to weigh in on the issues raised here. But this is your gaff Jim so I wouldn’t presume to be the one to do it.

Oh the National in December in the Olympia, that is good news. There goes any small lingering thoughts of EP. Any heads up on possible prices (with or without fees!)

The Harro @59. Plating Belfast and Dublin December 8th & 9th.

whatever the price ends up being never forget that 13.5% (I think) of it is vat, thank you irish govt. I wouldn;t mind paying it so much if they didn’t waste so much of it, de useless feckers

This new trend of putting on mega line ups in the o2 is just not good is it? The recent Rage Against The Machine (77 euro -standing) concert bill was draining. A screamcore emo band on 7:30 was just too early. Next was Gogol Bordello which I enjoy but no in a venue like that. Incredbly unsuitable and annoying for most I think. It’s just a way to hike up beer sales if you ask me, as unlike alot of other countries… we will complain about ticket prices but the nknock up a bill of 50+ bill at the bar and not complain about that? I just want to see the main act and leave. I’d prefer no support and a cheaper price. Who likes Vampire Weekend anyways?

73 euro

72 comments at the time of writing!

Im absolutely taking on board some of the stuff you are saying here, but if Arcade Fire and their management were the greedy so and sos some folks are suggesting they are their ticket prices would be extortionate all over the world? The reality is they are not, for example they are playing a show in Munich and its priced at €35 including fees.
I have not been to see ‘an o2′ sized artist for a good few years in this city/country where i have paid any less than €45, we are one of the few places that still have our tickets priced at these nose bleed levels and i feel like this needs to be taken in to account when commenting on how a band conduct themselves in general with relation to pricing for their audiences.
Ok so, maybe Arcade Fire arent doing their absolute best when negotiating whats right for us when dealing with the promoter but what band is? Honestly the only big famous person ive seen play for less than 45 quid was Lady Gaga, when Aiken brought her to the O2 in February, i remember being shocked and bewildered when i bought those tickets, as i expected them to be €20 (at least) more than they were.
The reality is that this is a band who have sold 160k copies of their new record in the states last week, this gig was never gonna be €35. Comparing events in smaller venues to gigs on this scale is pointless in my opinion, as it becomes a completely different game when you get to this level.
We get ripped off constantly when buying tickets, and yeah i hate it, and yes it should be discussed, but im not sure why this gig is being buried up to its neck and stoned to be held up as some kind of an example.

Ill be buying a standing ticket from an outlet and im thinking it will come out at less than 60 quid based on the 50 euro price we’ve been given, even with the fees (correct me if im wrong), I wish it was cheaper but i wish shitloads of gigs were cheaper, I guess ill get to go to some cheap(ish) gigs when i move.

Whether it ends up being 60ish or 70ish, it is simply too much. It has crossed – and is way beyond – the line in terms of how me and many of my regular gig-going friends feel at the moment about buying tix. I’ve been to see AF before, and loved the gig. However, 45ish in the Olympia is a hell of a lot different from the price that’s being discussed here – regardless of who is supporting. And even if VW is supporting, I’d rather have the choice – finances barely permitting – of going to see each one play a full set in a smaller venue than the O2. I mailed the link as soon as I saw it, and no-one was up for going – the reaction was universally “73, WTF”. Serious re-think required on prices, and even if the support are someone that 75% of the crowd would like to see, I don’t think the joint bill deal would really appeal. Big thumbs down from me … and the 10 or so friends I mailed the link to.

@ John @ 71 – This isn’t necessarily a new trend…Promoters have been putting multiple line ups together for some time now, in order to sell tickets and fill big venues that the supposed headliner wouldn’t fill on their own merit…but up to now they have been mostly incompatible bands…Pixies and Red hot Chili Pepppers in Phoenix park….New Order and Red hot Chili Peppers in Landsdowne….I wanted to see Pixes and New Order and was mightily pissed off at having to buy a ticket for RHCP in order to see them…I dodn;t bother with New Order in the end and needless to say I left after Pixies in the park.

As others have said, it’s unlikely AF would fill two nights in the O2 on their own, despite their hype, but they’re probably too popular for a just two nights in the Olympia or Vicar Street.

Regarding Ian’s comments that , buying tickets is a choice and no one is forcing anyone to pay €73 …yes I agree with that, however some bands inspire complete devotion in some people and if your in that position, it’s very hard to say no if this is your only chance to see your favorite band play.

My only time to baulk at a ticket price was when Yazoo played here two years ago, €68 I think it was. Despite loving the band since their heyday and never thiking ni’d ever get a chance to see them, there was no way I was paying that to see a synthpop duo almost 30 years after their prime

Fair play to Scott for being open to dialogue on this.

Scott – thanks very much for taking the time to reply. In one way, I’m hugely bemused that we’re talking here about a gig which the promoter has yet to confirm is actually happening or announce but when you have Twitter and blogs, you don’t need official announcements any more. Anyway, I appreciate your candour and I have a few questions in return.

Could you tell me your views on all-in ticket pricing? Would it not be better if the price announced was the FULL price which the punter pays INCLUDING Ticketmaster fees?

I find it slightly weird that you, like every band on the circuit, are using TM as convenient whipping boys here. I’m not a fan of TM’s business model, but I do find it slightly creepy and disengenious that promoters and especially bands use TM are a way to blame away high ticket prices. It’s like how one banker or developer takes the raps for the sins of everyone in Ireland. Surely there is another way that a band like AF, a band who EVERY promoter wants to book, could exploit when it comes to selling tickets? Could you make it a term of your contract which your agent negotiates that fees are cut down? It can be done. After all, as you know, some of the fees go back to the promoter eventually as a rebate (which I assume the band never sees?)

Thanks for pointing out that 10 per cent of your inventory goes via your website – surely, though, if you can handle 10 per cent, you could handle more? Or is this part of the venue lock-in (ie TM has to sell 90 per cent?) Did this also apply when you played the tent in the Phoenix Park in Dublin a few years ago too? Surely there wouldn’t be that lock-in for what was a temporary venue?

And finally, who’s the third band on the bill, Scott? Forgive me for being cheeky here! I know The National are down for a few standalone dates before your Dublin o2 run so is it them?

Fair play to Scott for responding personally.
Secondly, we live on an island. It is a logistical and expensive pain the hole to get an entire tour over here.
Arcade Fire, in my experience, have always tried to engage honestly with their fans and aren’t rip-off merchants to any degree.
Posters stating that it’s X euro cheaper in the UK or whatever are suggesting that the band have specifically selected Ireland to have a price gouge but keep costs keen for everyone else. Come on.
Is it not more likely the case that the cost of doing business here – between getting here and dealing with our own inflated costs structures – is what’s really contributing to the cost?

And everyone that goes anyway is just going to say that it wasn’t as good as the EP performance in 2005. The band can’t win.
Keep the kvetching for those that deserve it.

i’m still confused regarding the €73 ticket price!

if i decide to buy a ticket for this, and i’m not sure if i want to or can afford it, and i share some of the above reservations about buying into a big triple blll where you get neither full length sets, or have to pay for bands that you don’t necessarily want to see, i would be buying a standing ticket, online, and paying the dreaded ticketmaster fee of €5.70 (assuming Ian’s figure above to be correct). how is this north of €73 jim?

Mindless@77 has said that he mailed this link to friends once he read it who all decided it wasn’t worth it, based on a speculated price of €73, when in fact they could get them for €55.70. Is this not the case?

I think it is fair to say that when most people discuss ticket prices they refer to the actual cover price(rightly or wrongly). Nobody likes ticketmaster handling fee’s etc but everyone is aware of them, and know’s they will have to be paid. I think it also fair to assume that when people read the €73 speculated cost of ticket, that they would have assumed there would be fee’s etc on top of that, further inflating the cost.

Also, where tickets are priced at €50 & €60, using the more expensive one as the basis of calculations smacks of trying to create a shitstorm. Just for the record, i aint no band fanboy, like most people i thought the first album was awesome, the second one average, and am liking the new one. Haven’t been to a venue bigger than vicar st in years and would probably consider these tics if its €55 odd out of my pocket.

sorry for the rambling comment – thats nearly my 500 words of summer!

Some very heartfelt and passionate discussion on here and its nice to see people who feel this way about music and ticket prices in general. It’s a conversation which needs to be had by everybody – those who go to gigs, the promoters and bookers for gigs and indeed the management of bands and bands themselves. It just so happens that the straw that broke the back for a lot of us was Arcade Fire. We’ve been going on about the price of gig & festival tickets here versus Europe for ages and the difference in value for money. Jim I give you props for starting the debate on here because a lot of hacks and music press don’t bother.

Scott @ 76 props to you for coming here and posting your thoughts. I appreciate that you’ve done that. I suppose for most of us AF fans here in Ireland it is a bitter pill to swallow seeing ticket prices in mainland Europe being in the region of 35 euros and then ’speculative’ prices of 73 euro or even the 50 to 60 euro being quoted for us. Yes we’re an island and I can appreciate the costs involved in terms of getting equipment here and not the same return for 2 or 3 shows on the Island (I’m including Belfast here as well if a show was to be put on there) As say 10 shows the UK. At the end of the day AF like all bands is a business and you have to make money but is it fair that the end price for us is nearly double – in my opinion no, but then life isn’t fair. I know the costs have to be passed on the consumer but all of it? At some point the customer is saying no and that point for a lot of us is now.

Mindless @ 77 exactly the same response from my group of regular gig going friends as well. As somebody else mentioned further up the thread the cost for a couple to go + babysitter + spends for the night is getting more and more prohibitive.

I said it in my original post @ 55 the fear for Irish gig goers is if they don’t pay the higher ticket prices, bands won’t come here well maybe that is going to have to be a reality. I remember the 80’s when you were chomping at the bit for huge bands to come here and play more often than not they didn’t. Its fantastic to see the amazing venues we have here now for gigs both big and large The O2, Grand Canal with more to come (workmans club revamped Pravda & mercantile etc) but are they all going to be empty or just filled with local bands?

!AF is not the first gig I’ve said no to this year, more recently I said no to Belle & Sebastian as well. December is a big month for gigs here and when I can see frightened rabbit for 20 quid or so I’d rather do that then fork out north of 200 quid for AF. I love AF and they’re one of my favourite bands and yep I’ll probably kick myself for having not been there, but financially it is a choice I’m going to have to make. A line has to be drawn in the sand at some point and here it is. I saw them at Oxegen and I was under whelmed. I’m going to hold out for The National dates in the Olympia instead – it’s a better venue and more bang for my buck in my mind even if prices are 50 quid. More intimate, less people and just an overall better vibe.

The costs involved are going to have to be looked at on a wider scale if it’s the costs payable to the O2 or MCD etc well they’re going to have to reassess too. If the trend for all future gigs in the O2 is going to be ticket prices like that I can see the wider audience saying no, and then that means we’ll have lots of due to ‘unforeseen circumstances’ posts much like a lot of North American shows I’ve been reading about recently. The bands and management are going to have to look at the fees they’re getting too, If the band feel they can’t afford to come here by taking a lower cheque well then so be it. As a regular gig goer it’s a passion and is becoming an increasingly expensive hobby. Bottom line the country is in serious recession we don’t have the same level of disposable income we had back in 2004 or 2005.

PS sorry for the ramble but this is really a topic that’s goading me at the moment – ie high ticket prices and the general rip of the paddy paying public because the country is too expensive to put on shows!

With deluded superfans like Ian, Arcade Fire are well set for the next 20 years

Fair play to Ian. I think he defended his viewpoint pretty well.

Mulitple bills are only good if you happen to like the bands on the bill. If you’re a big of AF and VW, great. E70 or whatever is, could represent good value. I think it’s a good idea for bands to combine costs like this, if the concert goer is going to save some money too.

However, I’ve seen VW twice now and AF once. Simply put, I wouldn’t be willing to E70 or whatever it is to see either one again. Hence, I lose out. AS pointed out above, multiple gigs in the past had Pixie fans paying to see the RHCP.

But if the third band was someone I really want to see, then the E70 of whatever it is, represents decent value.

Temper Trap – Tripod – €28
Cash of Cheers – Wheelans – €10
Beirut – Tripod – €28.50
Switch from Major Lazer – Twisted Pepper – €11.95
——————————-
Total 78.45

Paying almost the same amount for ONE gig – Priceless.
There’s allot you can waste your money on, make sure one thing you do is gig.

some general thoughts on touring practices of bands (by ‘bands’ i mean the artists, managers, agents etc) and so-called logisitcal costs of coming to Ireland:

When a band (from America) comes to Europe it is usually a case of ‘damage limitation’ in terms of costs, the only shows that matter to them would be London/Paris/Berlin etc. These are the cities where hype (in band speak, cabbage) is generated..Regardless of the cost of getting there, bands tread very carefully not to pi$$ these audiences off (particularly in terms of ticket prices), in somewhere like Paris audiences would just turn their nose up at an act charging such high fees and go and see someone else as there is never a shortage of other shows on in big cities.

so then what happens is the bands figure ‘well we gotta make money somewhere on this trip to make it worth our while’..this is where Dublin comes in. under the guise of logistical costs they feel they can charge what they want..’take it or leave it’ kind of stuff, they can effectively hold the promoter to ransom. these bands could easily do without a trip to the Emerald Isle to play just another arena. As mentioned before this is the business end of the industry (which is fair enough, it is their job) and evryone has got to get paid (including the promoter here)..

So unfortunately Irish music fans find themselves in a corner when it comes to these kind of situations, take the hit and pay the ticket prices, or face the reality that bands wouldnt bother coming here if it wasnt such a well rewarded pit-stop.

Symptomatic of society in Ireland I guess…. ‘joe public keeps getting rinsed even though he knows it’s wrong’..

I hope some of that makes sense..

8 versions of the album cover is not a rip off to their obsessive fans No? Oxygen over Glastonbury not greed No? lots of people I know who would have gone to see them in the past for the occasion as much as the band do not go to these things anymore as they have no jobs or have not got the disposable income they once had. I hope a few of these shows fall flat for the next while the acts may stay away for a short while but they will come back, how many acts have filmed the live dvd’s in Ireland over the years as the crowds are more responsive. Sure with ticket prices that high it is as easy to get a ryanair to the uk and see an act if you are clever in booking the flights.

one thing worth adding: i wouldnt single AF out for any criticism here, a precedent has been set by other artists/promoters in the past..a band will just have a look at other similar concerts in Dublin to calculate their asking price. and i presume the promoter’s fee is a commission, so the bigger the better for him – and in ireland everything sells out so it’s a relatively risk-free strategy for all involved..
bands want to make as much cash as possible while it’s offer – there is no virtue in this buisness of turning your nose up at big pay days, when they know the same fans will quickly jump ship once there is a new hype to follow.
yes, it’s greedy, but everything in a capitalist system is driven by greed in one shape or form..

As well as the Production costs outilned above by Scott to bring the band to Dublin , Isn’t one of the reasons for our high ticket prices compared to Belfast or the UK due to the fact that bands also have to pay the venue extremely high insurance costs in Dublin ( in the thousands) compared to hundreds up North and in the UK ?

Not sure why this is but I can remember vaguely somebody telling me this about The Point before..
Maybe another area to question if I’m correct..

‘How come this wasn’t on Joe Duffy today?’

becasue he’s pissed off Glasvegas didnt get the third support slot

Didn’t we already have this exact conversation three years ago?

Arcade Fire are nice blokes and blokettes, and we all like the cut of their jib, but what were we expecting? That they were going to charge below market-value tickets to play in a teeny tiny venue just because that’s what would suit us? How considerate of them. We know exactly what would happen then – all two dozen tickets would be scooped up by touts, they’d be on eBay for 120 quid that morning and we’d all be back here to whine about that by afternoon. They can’t, ahem, win.

73 euro would be excessive, and I think a certain amount of the ruckus is residual outrage over that price, but I definitely wasn’t expecting any less than 50 and I don’t know how anybody else could have been either. The ticket price was never going to go below that threshold after Phoenix Park, and it’s about par for the course for a band in the O2.

I’m sorry, I don’t understand why Arcade Fire are getting it in the neck for this in particular, given how standard it is for the Irish market. Maybe just because they blew up so fast, but it smacks of particular flavour of sour grapes to me – a band we love that used to be small enough to play small venues for small ticket prices is big now. It sucks from my perspective, sure, but I can’t expect AF to make their decisions just to suit me. Sure why not have them come play in my gaff for free? I won’t even have to leave the house, they can save me the price of a taxi.

As for the eight album covers, you weren’t supposed to buy all eight for God’s sake that’s why they’re interchangeable.

I have only just caught up with this discussion. took quite a while to read 106 comments. I particularly liked John @80’s comment about Ian. It made me laugh.

I paid 76 quid for Pearl Jam in the o2 in June. Had the ticket for six months and then two days before the gig realise I couldn’t go, and couldn’t get rid of the ticket. Dunno if I will make the same committment for Arcade Fire. I saw them at Oxegen a few years back and thought they were poor. Vampire Weekend are great live though. Would like to see them again. I hope the National don’t support. I would shell out 50 euro to see them on their own.

I also don’t like the 02. There, I said it….

Well, given that the manager of the act has stepped up to the plate to confirm the gig and the support act, I suppose we’re no longer dealing with speculation. That said, I’m still awaiting an announcement and confirmation from the promoter, MCD. A very strange state of affairs

ciaran @ 104 – please note the manager himself has not denied that this is the price – we’re still in the dark about the final price for this gig. Also, enough with your snippy shitetalk about “the many sites/blogs/twitterers that had info of the gig up a couple of days before you posted it” – point me towards any of them which had the support act please. My industry sources remain confident that the final price to the consumer of these tickets will be €73. Sorry about this, pal

Arcade fire are number one in the UK and US album charts and are probably one of the most popular live acts out touring currently,what’s the big deal with paying to see them in the 02?
Show has not been announced and i’m sure the industy insider at ticketmaster should be really careful or they may be also be struggling to buy a ticket.
Totally agree with gemma popular band getting in the neck because they are popular and won’t be going back to playing shitholes of europe anytime soon.
Indie band does well shocker….your next target folks can be anyone you want it to be perhaps try Vampire Weekend they look like a target and you can bottle them off the stage if you like at the 02.

But here, if you’re still not happy, why not spend your sixty-ish quid on some of the other fine acts commanding a comparable fee? Fine acts like Sting, Shakira, or gosh, even Simply bloody Red, for instance

To me, this whole thing stinks of resentment that Arcade Fire aren’t our little pet band anymore. We’re happy to talk all day about what a shame it is that one obscure band is so underrated, or that another fell apart before their time, but here we have a genuinely independent band who actually *have* made it, relatively intact, and we don’t know what to do about it. It’s like it never really occurred to anybody that actually pulling it off was possible, so we were just completely unprepared for the higher ticket prices and bigger crowds and increased exposure that’s part and parcel of success in the music business.

Arcade Fire are actually selling records, they’re packing out massive venues, none of them look like they’re on heroin or likely to go mental and kill themselves any time soon, and we can’t forgive them for it because we still want them to be the band we can see with 6 other bloggers in a bus shelter for the price of a pizza.

“I prefer the early stuff” and all that.

When arcade fire sold out their 2 gigs in march 07 in record time ,i believe the post was arcade ire, over the fact that a hell of a lot of fans who could’nt get tickets (or pay the e250 on ebay) so now the option is there , avoid and be annoyed or pay and play.

Surely it’s time bands like AF treat a European tour as just that. Rather than stinging the punters who happen to live away from the mainland because the trucks and people have to go on a boat, shouldn’t the entire logistical cost be worked out and split equally across all gigs on the tour. Do the Swedish or Norwegians pay more because the tour has to move over the sea from Denmark? If they play a gig in Alaska do they pay more because it’s a more remote?

finally confirmed, tickets on sale next friday

Looks like you’re right about the €73 Jim. Tickets are on ticketmaster for €55.80 – €66.70 pre booking fee. (not on sale yet of course). Whoa what an entertaining thread, band manager input an d evrything. The AF concert will be an anit climax compared to this.

Niamh – those prices include booking fee BUT there is also the 12.5% credit card/telephone surcharge on top of that which is NEVER listed in tix prices. It makes the case again for all-in ticket pricing – ie the price quoted should be the price the punter pays at the ticket outlet.

Tickets for the O2 Dublin will come in at around 62 Euro for standing and 73 Euro for seats.(including TM fees)
While this is significantly more than the European gigs- which average around 40 to 45 Euro, Dublin is the only venue getting two support acts, one of which is Vampire Weekend who are on on the up, and who I personally am excited about seeing.

Having said this, it’s still hard to justify an additional 17 to 20 Euro for this welcome support addition.

The next question is – will they play 2 nights in Dublin ? And if so, will it be Saturday night or Monday night. London o2 tickets are going well and they added a second night there, so they can in theory play Dublin on the Saturday night also.

@116 KAren
you’re an island we have logistical costs to get band, equipment + hurdy gurdy from UK to your little island’

Karen this isn’t an excuse its a fact.Cost of getting 1 truck to uk from Ireland including fuel is appox 2,000 euro,multiply this by anywhere from 5-15 vehicles for a large event.30k-40k to get the vehicles into the country before you start.These are boring figures but this is what this entire post is about figures and numbers and what is real and what is not.
This is not hurdy gurdy these are fact’s we live on an island that is very expensive to get to.
Some will say leave the trucks behind and the equipment,fine do that and put 50 people up in a hotel for 3 days in mainland europe and then hire the same equipment again in Ireland for double the cost.
You are talking about things you know little about and venting about rumours that you can’t confirm about AF,
regarding Glastonbury/Electric Picnic they are far from the be all and end all of Festivals in Europe,Go to werchter or Roskillde,Pukkelpop,Sziget or any number of the well organised festivals in Europe and see how it’s really supposed to be done rather thinking that Glastonbury or EP is the holy Grail of festivals.

Facts are facts even if they are hard to swallow,it’s taken me a while to to figure that out but i have.
Cormac

Thanks for that Jim!

I agree with the idea about all-in ticket pricing. If a band or a promoter is going to charge a hefty fee like this for a ticket, the least that can be done is to be honest and transparent about actual bottom line fee that the punter will be paying. It’s all well and good saying that “well, we’re charging you €50 for a ticket but as for what the others add on top of that…it’s none of our business”. There needs to be some level of collaboration when announcing these numbers because clearly it’s not difficult to come up with with a reliable estimate as was done here yesterday.

I guess in ways this is related to this discussion. Im going to NY in 5 weeks on holiday, it started out as a trip to see Pavement (they were the first reunion gigs announced) and it was booked about a year ago..other gigs have been booked around the same time and even though NY is considered to be one of the most expensive cities to go to shows in..here is the breakdown of what im getting for shy of 200 euro. Clearly people who say its expensive to gig in NY have never been to Dublin/ireland.

Pavement w/ Thee Oh Sees
Pavement w/Times New Viking
Pavement w/ Jenny Lewis
Broken Social Scene w/The Sea and The Cake
Vampire Weekend w/ Beach House and Dum Dum Girls
Best Coast w/ Male Bonding.

All separate gigs on separate nights. All of these shows, including tm booking fees, and the international will call fee, come to just shy of 200 euro.

the idealist in me would like to think that any band should feel uneasy to know their loyal fans are paying excessive amounts of money to see them,*whatever* the reasons. The Clash were the archetypal example for me of a band who did everything in their power to ensure their fans weren’t getting ripped off. but i guess they were different times.

much better bunch of Cnuks playing 5 days later for a third of the price

http://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/ontherecord/2010/06/22/godspeed-you-black-emperor-dublin-december/

The Manchester gig sold out very quickly, yet you can still get a pair of tickets from eBay chancers for less than the Dublin gig will cost officially.

@Jim 126. I still think that these fees that the agent charges need to be detailed. In the event, that we have a situation that multiple agents can sell tickets on behalf of promoter than this is the area that they can compete on. By havng an all in price all a compeitor has to do is knock a euro off the all in price of the main player. We’re never going to see the breakdown of the costs and margins of what the band and promoter use to calculate the pre-agent price. At least everybody should be seeing what the agent fees are.

There are very few shows that are sold through two agents here. It would be great if there was some rulings to forc promoters to use at least 2 agents when going to market (subject to the agent providing a minimum standard of service and being ‘bonded’ like a travel agent,)

Arcade Fire, Vampire Weekend and Devendra Banhart for 70 quid? Sounds like decent value to me.

I personally think that the prices are above what they should be, but I do genuinely believe that the band are not out to rip anyone off.

Surely everyone has lived in Ireland long enough to realize that this country is a rip off, our government has done nothing to see that ordinary people can afford, what I’d call a simple pleasure of being entertained, at one point a few years back I paid 108 euro to see bob Dylan, 132 euro for Leonard Cohen in the same venue. If you compare most bands ticket prices, Ireland always comes out the most expensive, so surely it’s this country & not Arcade fire?

Simon – problem is, as manager has stated here already, there’s only a small percentage of tickets for the gig available via Crowdsurge and the vast majority of sales will be via TM. The question is why the band haven’t sold more via their own system – after all, they’re the talent and they control this issue.

Vampire Weekend have themselves now become a household name. Their ticket prices around the world hover between €30 to €35. And if these shows are anything like the Spoon/Arcade Fire shows Vampire Weekend will be given a lot of time on stage.

If Vampire Weekend weren’t included prices probably could have been reduced to around €40-45 but they weren’t and Devendra Banhart was also added which is pretty great.

There’s no getting around the fact that these guys are getting bigger and as another poster wrote previously, there’s definitely some resentment from people who saw them years back and who expect a band to always struggle and play small, intimate gigs forever.

If you can’t afford it don’t go. But think to yourself, “When was the last time you actually went to a proper rock show that wasn’t small and intimate because if you’re anything like me it’s probably been a while. People spend a lot more than this to go see mainstream acts all the time so this is the first time many of us have had to pay up for an act we like. Also, let’s not kid ourselves here. A lot of us DID NOT BUY THEIR RECORDS; WE DOWNLOADED THEM so if you feel like you’ve enjoyed their music for the past few years maybe the cost can be justified after taking all of this into consideration. You’ll probably have a good night out!

poor old arcade fire , no-one had a moan at stevie wonder(no support) bruce springteen and any of the other lads sorting out their pensions who have done very well out of irish audiences in the recent past

petee – I think the fact that Stevie hadn’t played here in 26 years had a lot to do with that – this will be Arcade Fire’s 9th gig here in 3 or 4 years.

Ivor – tsk, tsk. Hate that. Dude comes on here, being all chummy and friendly and then treats the queries he requested with disdain. Scott, tell us it ain’t so! Tell us you didn’t insult people who wrote to you ON THE BACK OF YOUR INVITATION! Scott, we thought you were better than that!

Any other readers write to Scott and not get a reply? Mmm, might get another post out of this.

2 standing tickets came to €117.30 inclusive of everything. I honestly don’t think that is excessive for 3 good acts… Sure, would be nice if it was cheaper…but I really don’t understand why this is generating such discussion. I have seen other gigs which much more exorbitantly priced …also got the tickets through bands website and avoided Ticketbastard

Fact- all gigs in Ireland are more expensive than elsewhere.
Fact- people will still pay whatever price is charged (many previous crazy prices have proved this (Tom Waits etc).
I suppose the one question for Scott Rodgers is what is Arcade Fire’s gross profit for the Irish gig compared to other venues? If it’s roughly the same then it’s harder for people to complain.
Pa.

Niamh – apparently, The National will play the Olympia in Dublin on Dec 2, 3 & 4

Hey! Arcade Fire is from Canada! They’re worth it!

Fact is, most Canadians would love any chance they could get to visit Ireland.

(The “other” Jim Carroll in Toronto, Canada, nee of County Kerry)

(www.jimcarroll.com)

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