Toxic! Britney tickets are on sale for €1,000
TICKETS to see Britney Spears perform here this summer are being offered on a re-sale site for up to €1,000 – a day before they go on general release.
The Oops I Did It Again star is to perform to fans in the 3Arena for just one night on August 20.
While tickets are due to go on sale today, some people snapped up pre-sale tickets that went on release yesterday morning before appearing to put them up for sale on ticket resale site Seatwave.
While most of the sellers were seeking between €180 and €375 per ticket, one seller was seeking an astonishing €1,000 per ticket for standard seats.
This price does not include the extra €719 in booking fees and VAT required to purchase the four tickets in Block A of the 3Arena.
General sale tickets will start at €96.50, say promoters MCD.
Seatwave, which is owned by Ticketmaster and receives a fee for each ticket sold on its site, declined to comment yesterday.
Fine Gael TD Noel Rock, who has co-sponsored a Bill with Fianna Fáil’s Stephen Donnelly that would outlaw ticket touting, said the high prices are ‘ridiculous’ and said it is ‘yet another example of good concert-goers and good fans of an artist being gouged systematically’.
Mr Rock criticised Ticketmaster and Seatwave, saying these ‘financially benefit from the re-sale of the tickets’ and that ‘as long as Ticketmaster materially benefit from the system staying as it is, this will continue’. He said he hopes progress on getting his Bill passed will come soon.
Dermott Jewell, chief executive of the Consumers Association of Ireland, echoed the views of the TDs and called for a complete ban on re-selling.
Sinn Féin TD Maurice Quinlivan, who has also prepared a Bill on ticket-touting, said laws were badly needed for the sector.
He said he was aware of occasions where people have advertised and sold tickets they do not have on the assumption they will be able to buy them at a lower price and pass them on.
His Bill has passed the second stage in the Dáil and gone to committee stage, where it has been delayed for nine months.
It is due to come before the business, enterprise and innovation committee soon.