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Updated 21.40pm
TICKETMASTER HAS SAID it is facing an “unprecedented” operation to refund Garth Brooks tickets for the 400,000 people who bought them.
Within minutes of Aiken Promotion confirming that all five concerts had been cancelled, questions were being raised about how all the would-be concert-goers will get their money back.
Full details of exactly how people can get a refund will be unveiled tomorrow.
Ticketmaster said it is “working on a plan to make the cancellation process as simple and convenient as possible for customers”.
“However the scale of this operation is unprecedented in the Irish entertainment industry and therefore we would ask customers to continue to be patient while we finalise our plan”.
Both Ticketmaster and Aiken Promotions promised that full details of the plan will be published tomorrow.
Tickets for the gig sold at between €65 and €80 each.
Rooms refunded
Meanwhile, Moran & Bewley’s Hotel Group has said it will refund rooms booked for the Garth Brooks concerts.
The group said in a statement that “all rooms, including those booked under a no-refund policy, which have been pre-paid will be completely refunded under these exceptional circumstances.”
“The decision to cancel all five concerts will cost Moran & Bewley’s Hotels a conservative minimum of €800,00 but estimates of everything from food and beverage to car parking will put that figure closer to an estimated €1.1 million.”
The Irish Hotels Federation said in a statement this evening that the concerts were a “major tourism event” and their cancellation will have a direct impact on Irish tourism businesses.
“The shambolic situation we now find ourselves in with the cancellation of all five concerts is nothing short of a disaster for our tourism industry,” according to IHF President Stephen McNally.
He also called on the government to ensure a similar issue “does not arise again”, saying: “This situation was entirely avoidable. Major events like this cannot be left to chance.”
The Licensed Vintners Association has criticised the cancellation of the concerts, saying they could have brought an estimated €15 million to Dublin pubs.
LVA Chief Executive Donall O’Keeffe said that news of the cancellations had come as a “body blow” to the Dublin pub trade and urged the Government to explore alternative remedies to the situation.
“All the parties involved in this mess, including the City Authorities, have mishandled this matter from start to finish,” O’Keeffe added. “The whole episode represents a massive financial hit to our members and to the thousands of people whom they employ across the city.”
- Additional reporting by Susan Ryan
Fair play & Good luck to her. Created 80k jobs out of nothing is a credit to anyone.
Unlike our shower who created nothing out of 70bn.
Created herself $8 billion out of 80k people’s work, more like.
That’s how business works
yeah – how dare she copy every other employee / employer relationship that ever existed.
Baz we’re talking about China, stories like this are not the American dream of rags to riches, in communist China they are the result of the ubiquitous corruption.
An article in the Sunday Times in 2011 caused uproar on sites like Mumsnet. The basic jist of the article was that the women who had succeeded did it by sheer determination and didn’t go around whining about glass ceilings, gender quotas and childcare. Their children by and large were cared for by their grandparents and one mother only saw her children only every 2 weeks. Most of them worked 10 hours a day 6-7 days a week. One of them was quoted as wondering why western women wanted everything. They wanted a well paid high end job and children at the same time with someone else to pay or subsidise the childcare. The women went on to say that in her view you either had a job or a family but you couldn’t have both.
Needless to saw it made for very interesting reading on social media over the next few days.
But men can have both career and kids? K.
That’s not my point Joanna and BTW a lot of men would love to spend more time with their children but can’t due to work pressures. Shift work, overnights and long hours on the road mean that they can’t spend more than a few hours a week with their children so it’s not all rosy for men either.
Well quit whining and let women work so you can raise kids. Heehee. ;)
Nice touch
Fairly play to her becoming an expert im maths and computer programming. Chinese people are really good at that stuff
I love the ridicule of china at the end. You should look at where china sits on the ranking of income inequality when compared to other countries. Ireland is 46th, China is 67th and the US is 96th (according to the world banks figures).
Communism in its purest form.
Interesting that….. problem is China is not communist. At some stage there could be revolution western style. The richer they get the more freedoms they will want.
Fair play to her she deserves it
The richer they get the happier they are with the government. A big crash in China would be much more dangerous than increasing wealth.
Charles, somebody might want to tell the
Communist Party of China
That.
They tried that in 89
Stopped reading at chinese. I dont care for any asian news
Umad, you really are mad
Hard to beat dim sum with a cuppa green tea.
MAO…..MAO…..
Chinese cat?
DIDDY MAO….
That’s like commenting schnell schnell on a story about a French woman.
Communist you say?
Just goes to prove despite its flaws capitalism is the best option
Give her Irish citizenship!
have your say