Irrational calls: Buying and selling concert tickets

U2 seem to have weathered the tongue-in-cheek accusation that they have become the ultimate U2 tribute band by promising to revive 30-year Joshua Tree concerts next summer. 

Tickets for a July concert in Croke Park went on sale yesterday morning and sold out within hours.

This will, of course, lead to what might be described as the Garth Brooks Conundrum — will further concerts be announced? It is difficult to dismiss that idea even though no further concerts are planned. That resolve may be shaken by the fact that within hours, tickets sold for between €39 and €186 were for sale for £1,000 plus fees on a reselling site.

Naturally, this has provoked the usual reaction from some politician or other who wants a share of the limelight. Calls to outlaw the sale of tickets for anything other than the cover price abound even though the rationale behind that flies in the face of capitalism — the ethos, like it or not, we live our lives by. If such legislation was to be enacted for show tickets why not apply it to the price of houses or land? Why not apply it to all property? Rattle and Hum indeed.