Born to be fleeced: The high prices we pay for entertainment in Ireland
I balked when confronted with shelling out €140 of my (relatively) hard-earned cash to see the Boss next year. Picture: AP /Emilio Morenatti
I grew up in a Springsteen house.
My sister has been to see him multiple times across Europe, and he was a staple for throwing into the CD player when going on a family road trip.
But even I balked when confronted with shelling out €140 of my (relatively) hard-earned cash to see the Boss next year.
Born to Run, or Born to Earn? For many, it was a choice of Dancing in the Dark in the Páirc, or paying their electricity bill.
Not that it mattered: Cork and Kilkenny were fully sold out within 90 minutes, with minimal tickets left for Dublin and Belfast within just hours of the events going on sale.
Bruce is not alone in sky-high ticket prices, though. Coldplay’s Croker appearance? €111 for standing. Taylor Swift may be seen as the new queen of the world, but a €146 standing ticket for her sold-out gigs in the Aviva Stadium next year is far from royal.
So if you successfully managed to grab tickets to the three biggest concerts in Ireland next year, you have spent at least €400 in doing so.
Congratulations! Hopefully, you’re single and friendless, because some will have had to get them for a partner/pal/group of pals and will have gone northwards of a grand in doing so.
I’m fortunate enough to live within 45 minutes of Dublin City, meaning I do not have to worry about having to book a hotel for the night in the capital for any of the superstar gigs.
What if I was based in the west of the country? No matter where I wanted to go see Bruce, I’m forking out hundreds on hotels or looking at pricey late-night transport options. That’s even if I can get availability — within minutes of the Cork or Kilkenny concerts being confirmed, there were no hotel rooms available on a leading booking site.
So, what is there left for people to do if they can’t get to gigs? Sport of course! The most simple form of entertainment, always easily available to all, right?
The GAA has steadily added on to ticket prices for Allianz League and All-Ireland Championship games — and that’s before you get on to the whole Sky/GAAGo debacle, which is set to continue into next season.
Last month, the FAI’s portal for renewing season tickets for the Ireland men’s side opened — with the FAI proudly proclaiming that “prices remain unchanged for renewals for 2024 season.”
Except it didn’t. A family season ticket now costs €460 — up from €400 in 2023 — and over the years, the extra perks like FAI cup final premium tickets and entry to the Ireland WNT or U21 games have been stripped away, without even an Olé, Olé, Olé.
Okay, so sport is out the window, let’s see what’s on the telly then?
We have the media giants like Netflix, Prime and Disney producing incredible content but hiking the price we pay to see it. Broadcasting companies proudly boast of offers where if you combine two packages, it comes down to "€55 a month for six months" — with the increase to €120 a month after that hidden away in small print.
While their price models continue to rise at pace, they are being mirrored by the rise in the number of people turning to ‘dodgy boxes’. I know of many people who scoff at the "€55 a month" offer when they can get all the channels involved in said offer for less than €50 a year, providing the person they have bought the illegal streams from doesn’t get caught.
What about the video game industry — the big bosses are selling the ‘next-gen’ consoles for cheaper if you buy them without a disc drive.
If you opt for that, you’re then at the mercy of whatever they decide to charge for digitally downloading the games onto your console. The most recent edition of EA Football Club (formerly the Fifa game series) saw prices range from a minimum of €71 all the way up to €130.
Forget about the F word — we’re getting F’ed over by the G word — gougers.
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