Irish Examiner view: Pricey tickets

Springsteen concerts

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band are set to play three nights at the RDS over the next few days. Picture: AP

Bruce Springsteen returns to Dublin for three concerts in the RDS, beginning tomorrow evening. The Boss’s live shows are legendary three-hour experiences ranging over a lengthy back catalogue that dates back five decades.

Those shows are also expensive. There was some controversy over the prices for the Dublin show, which ranged from €96 to €156 for seated and €131 for standing, before the addition of service fees by Ticketmaster (prices for Springsteen’s 2016 Dublin concert began at €65).

Ticketmaster’s dominance of the live event market is undesirable as a bar to competition, but also because of the potential for even higher ticket prices. In the US, Ticketmaster’s algorithm-driven ‘dynamic pricing’ model saw Springsteen tickets in the US sold on the site for up to $5,000.

Legislative intervention may be necessary to keep ticket prices in check here, as not every musician is sympathetic to the plight of their fans. 

Springsteen himself had little comfort for his American fans, acknowledging that dynamic pricing was unpopular but adding that fans could get their money back if they had complaints. Baby, he was born to earn.