The €44.5 million generated in ticket sales at the box office for Coldplay’s four sold out nights at Croke Park last year helped promoters MCD Productions to a record €238.5 million in 2024 sales.
New figures from trade journal Pollstar show Coldplay’s Dublin shows in front of 329,000 fans during August and September was the band’s most lucrative set of gigs anywhere in the world last year.
The concerts ranked third in its “top 300 worldwide concert grosses”, with U2′s two strings of shows at the Sphere in Las Vegas taking the top two places with a combined box office of $134.72 million (€131 million). Average ticket prices for the U2 gigs were $352 (€342).
Coldplay’s Dublin appearances helped the band generate $421 million in global ticket sales, ranked second only to Taylor Swift’s $1 billion Eras tour.
Almost half a million music fans attended Croke Park last year – 489,507 revellers paid out $76.49 million (€74.4 million) to attend gigs at the GAA headquarters.
Pollstar ranks Croke Park the tenth busiest stadium venue in the world for concert attendances and the third in Europe last year, easily outstripping the 229,909 music fans who attended gigs at Wembley Stadium in London.
Along with Coldplay, 82,298 AC/DC fans paid $14.3 million to see them play at the outdoor venue.
On the back of Taylor Swift gigs, the Aviva Stadium in Dublin last year generated $49 million in box office sales after 256,482 attended concerts there.
In a bumper year for Irish artists, the Pollstar figures show that 85 shows by Niall Horan generated $68 million at the box office after just over one million fans paid to see the Mullingar singer-songwriter during the year.
Hozier also narrowly passed the 1 million mark in 2024 when fans paid out $57.64 million to see the ‘Too Sweet’ singer songwriter play 68 shows. Both artists are in the top 50 worldwide tours for 2024.
The thriving live music scene resulted in a “best ever year” for Denis Desmond’s Gaiety Investments joint venture with Live Nation, MCD Productions selling a record 2.92 million tickets.
The $245 million in ticket sales for MCD last year had the Irish firm ranked 10th in the world in terms of box office revenues – the average cost of an MCD ticket was €81.33.
One of the main drivers of MCD’s ticket sales last year was Taylor Swift’s Aviva series, part of the European leg of her ERAS tour. However, box office returns for those gigs are not available as the artist chose not to report her individual figures.
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