Third date on horizon as U2 sell out

U2 tickets sold out this morning as expected leading to the possibility of a third date at Croke Park.

By 9.30am there was only single tickets available for their two dates at Croke Park on July 24th and 25th with a sold-out sign on the Ticketmaster website before 10am.

It now leaves the way open for a third date at the venue on Monday, July 27th.

Ticketmaster managing director Eamonn O’Connor said he hoped there would be an extra date added to satisfy ticket demand. A third date is already under consideration as Croke Park has planning permission for three shows this year.

MCD spokesman Justin Green said the tickets sold out faster than the Vertigo concerts in 2005 and that only single tickets remained within an hour of it going on sale. “We sold 164,000 tickets in an hour. They are bigger now than ever,” he said.

As usual U2’s most dedicated fans Martin Shanahan, originally from Bantry, Co Cork, but now living in London, and his friend Vincent Kearns from Dublin were top of the queue at the Ticketmaster outlet in St Stephen’s Green this morning.

About 200 fans queued overnight for tickets and extra tickets were released to the St Stephen’s Green Ticketmaster outlet to ensure that they all got tickets.

“They’ve been the soundtrack of my life since 1978. I could not conceive of not being at Croker or 25 other dates around the world,” said Martin who has been queuing since Sunday morning.

He pronounced himself “slightly disappointed” with the queues for U2360.

“The queues for Vertigo were much larger. I reckon there was between 1,500 and 2,000 fans then. I’m hoping it is a case of it being a younger audience and four years later they being a lot more cool with the internet.”

Croke Park stadium director Peter McKenna said: “It is like having two All Ireland finals back to back. These aren’t just Irish concerts, they are truly international events with fans travelling from Brazil to Canada, Australia to Japan – this is Croke Park and the city of Dublin on show to the world.”

At 10am, the only tickets still available were (Red) Zone backstage passes which are being auctioned off with an undisclosed sum going to the Red Product charity.