Tickets to U2’s eagerly-awaited Joshua Tree Tour concert on July 22nd in Croke Park, which went on pre-sale this morning, have predictably enough already sold out.
While the general public will have to wait till Monday 11th January, subscribers to U2’s website were offered the chance to grab tickets well before that, from 9am this morning. And while you’d have thought that these would be the genuine U2 fans, judging by the number of tickets that immediately went on sale on sites such as Heatwave and Viagogo, many people have bought the tickets simply to make a quick profit.
Official ticket prices range from €39 (the top of the stand furthest from the stage), to €186 (low down on the stand close to the stage), with general standing tickets priced at €76. While this is expensive by anyone’s standards, most U2 fans will be willing to pay this for what is guaranteed to be a memorable concert.
This has encouraged the touts from looking for even higher prices, however, and already there seems to be demand for them. On Seatwave, the regular standing tickets on the pitch, which should be €76, are starting at €300 each, going up to €1000! While you can get the same tickets on Viago starting at €250, this is still over 3 times the face value.
Tickets in the Upper Stands, which should start at €40, are on sale on Seatwave starting at a mind-boggling €600, 15 times the regular price! And if you really want to get up close and personal, the best priced seated tickets, which have a face value of €186, will set you back €700 minimum.
The people behind these sites claim that they are simply offering tickets that are “unwanted”, but the fact that hundreds of these pre-sale tickets went up on re-sale sites within minutes of them being purchased suggests that they were bought just to turn a quick profit, which is touting, plain and simple.
Maybe the powers that be will finally step in, and stop this exploitation of real fans?
