At the risk of sounding like a broken record (following posts on the subject here and here), here’s the audio from yesterday’s (Tuesday, April 28) debate between Sean Sherlock TD and Stuart Clark of Hot Press on Today FM’s The Last Word.
I thought it was a good discussion on the matter, with decent points made. I would, however, disagree with a few of Stuart Clark’s points. Let’s start with the positive; Sean Sherlock summed up the point well towards the end when he said:
If there is a taxation built in there’s no promoter in the world who is going to add 20% onto the cost of a ticket to go in to see Springsteen for instance. What he is going to do is he is going to build in the fact that there is already a taxation there and will price accordingly.
This is exactly the point we’ve been making for a while now, that this can be a positive step for Irish gig-goers. For what it is worth I agree wholeheartedly with two of the points Stuart made. There is a hidden positive knock on felt by the Irish economy by concerts, especially the larger event gigs. I also agree that the Irish Government does little to promote rock, pop or alternative music.
What I don’t agree with is the following:
(1) That calling for this taxation “is very short-sighted and naive“.
I honestly think the more myopic knee-jerk reaction to this is to assume that costs for the punter would be pushed up. Stuart maintains that artists will not absorb the costs – why not? They do so in the UK. If gone about the right way a potential tax could be brought in to apply to the larger earners, not the small band launching their debut EP in Whelans or Cyprus Avenue. This tax could act as a deterrent to higher prices.
The piece in the Indo that sparked my interest in this suggested that the recent Tina Turner and Bruce Springsteen concerts earned the artists in the region of €12 million. Would an artist seriously consider ignoring Ireland if they earned slightly less than that for playing here? With physical sales of albums dropping, live shows are accounting for an ever increasing slice of an artist’s income. Can they afford to ignore a market where they still stand to make lucrative sums, even if it is slightly less than before?
(2) Prices would be pushed up.
If this happened, demand would go. As Sean said, concert-goers are bound to be price sensitive. Today’s news on the latest ESRI reports make for grim reading. Would promoters really push prices up when the Irish economy is expected experience the worst slump of any industrialised economy since the 1930s? When the economy is due to contract by nearly 12%?
It would be short-sighted and naive to do that, surely? Bear in mind that even now U2 are already finding it difficult to sell out their homecoming dates on their tour, at prices that it has to be said are more than reasonable compared to the prices asked for by Bruce, Tina and co.
(3) Finally, Stuart’s argument on the costs of doing the business here in Ireland, specifically the high cost of public liability insurance and transport expenses.
Why, if insurance costs are so high, have promoters come together to campaign the issue? Why are these costs so high and if they truly are, why haven’t promoters addressed the costs with a view to having them reduced for their customers? As for transport costs, Stuart alluded to the fact that artists can do six or seven dates across the UK. However all their equipment has to be transported between these destinations. The cities of London, Birmingham, Manchester and Glasgow were cited by Matt Cooper as event destinations. There are HUGE distances between these locations, and the cost of petrol and diesel in the UK is significantly higher than in Ireland; would the cost of a ferry from Liverpool to Ireland for the event trucks really push the costs to exorbitant levels?
As I said, it was good to hear the issue at least debated on radio, but I can’t agree with Stuart Clark’s insistence that the price differential between here and the UK is purely down to insurance and transport. A texter to the show following the debate highlighted the cost differential between a gig in Vicar St and in Belfast.
Look at some of the price differences for gigs. All the prices I have quoted are the cheapest seats available at the relevant gig, as quoted on Ticketmaster.ie and its UK counterpart with the exception of Britney Spears’ Irish gig, the details of which I took from the press release announcing the gig. The euro exchange was calculated yesterday, Tuesday April 28 on Xe.com.
- Britney Spears: The O2 London, June 14: £49.50 (€55.6383). Britney Spears: The O2 Dublin, June 19 (as per the press release tickets on sale Friday) €86.25. That’s a difference of over €30 between the cheapest tickets. The cheapest Irish tickets to see Britney Spears in the O2 Dublin are 55% dearer than the cheapest tickets to see her in London 5 days earlier.
- Green Day: The MEN Arena, Manchester, October 30: £35.00 (€39.3013). Green Day, The O2 Dublin October 21 – €49.20. A difference of just under €10 between the cheapest tickets, which may not sound much but is an increase on the UK prices of over 25% for Irish gig goers.
- Leonard Cohen, Liverpool Echo Arena, July 14: £55.00 (€61.7881). Leonard Cohen, The O2, Dublin, July 19 €90.00. A difference of just under €30 between the cheapest tickets or an increase of over 45%.
- Bruce Springsteen, Hyde Park, London, 28 June: £45.00 (€50.5267). Bruce Springsteen, RDS Arena, Dublin, July 11 €86.25. A difference of over €35 between the cheapest tickets or an increase of over 70% on the UK price for the Irish gig.
Bar the potential benefit for the Irish exchequer, if implemented correctly a tax similar to the one in operation in the UK has great potential for the punter too.
