Take That boost hotel trade

Take That bring their Progress tour to Dublin this weekend and with it a bonanza for hard-pressed hoteliers.

The band play two concerts on Saturday and Sunday night as part of their Progress tour, which has just finished in the United Kingdom.

The combined capacity for both concerts in 165,000 spectators with promoters MCD expecting that production tickets that were put on sale on Tuesday will be gone by the weekend.

The hotels.com website is reporting that 235 hotels and guest houses in Dublin have no availability at all on Saturday night. Of those that do the Gresham Hotel has only a few rooms left at €390 each and the Fitzwilliam Hotel had one room left at €380.

A room at the Travelodge in Dublin Airport is €69 on Friday night and €220 on Saturday night.

Irish Hotels' Federation president Paul Gallagher said Take That were a “phenomenal driver” of demand for hotel rooms at the weekend and he expected all the city’s hotels to be full on Friday and Saturday night and mostly full on Sunday with fans accounting for nearly 15,000 of the 48,000 beds available in the capital over the weekend.

He said very few acts, with the exception of U2, could generate such demand for hotels rooms.

He said it was a “silly bugger story” to suggest that fans were being ripped off by hotels.

“This is about market force yield; it is not about a rip-off. Hotel rates are fluid every day of the year upward and downward. For 360 days of the year hotels are offering heavily discounted rates with some rates below a profitable offering.”

The Progress tour is one of highly anticipated of recent years especially when it was announced in November that Robbie Williams would be reunited with his old bandmates.

Williams has sold out Croke Park as a solo artist in June 2006, but he admitted his performance then was below par and he suffered from stage fright.

The band’s crew were still building the stage yesterday which stretches past the half-way line. Its centrepiece will be a huge robot called Om, which malfunctioned at one the Manchester concerts, forcing members Howard Donald and Mark Owen to use a ladder to access the stage.

The Manchester Royal Infirmary reported a 10 per cent rise in admissions to A&E mostly as a result of drunk fans who had fallen over and hurt themselves at the band’s series of concerts in the City of Manchester Stadium last week.

Supt Sean Ward from Fitzgibbon Street station said there was no such problems at the band’s performance in Croke Park two years ago and he did not anticipate any repeat over the two nights in Dublin.

“I would advise people to enjoy themselves within limits and make sure that they are not removed to hospital. They need to look after themselves while they are there.”