Country Profile: Republic of Ireland

Plenty have tried their luck at breaking in over the years, but after all this time, the Irish live scene is still essentially defined by two veteran competitors: Dún Laoghaire’s MCD Productions and the Belfast-born, Dublin- based Aiken Promotions.

Live Nation UK & Ireland chairman Denis Desmond and wife Caroline Downey’s £48.3m deal to sell half of MCD to their joint venture with Live Nation, LN Gaiety Holdings, was finally concluded in January 2020 after a lengthy probe by the Competition and Markets Authority concluded that the tie-up was not anti-competitive. As a result, Live Nation’s extended Irish empire broadly comprises MCD’s calendar of shows; the Longitude and Electric Picnic festivals; the Trinity Summer Series; Dublin venues including the 3Arena, Bord Gáis Energy Theatre, the 3Olympia Theatre, and The Gaiety; and the market-leading Ticketmaster.

All were back in action in 2022 after a painful 22-month layoff in which, by Desmond’s own estimate, MCD lost revenues of €20m.

All were back in action in 2022 after a painful 22-month layoff in which, by Desmond’s own estimate, MCD lost revenues of €20m. Since then, the promoter has been making up for lost time, with Guns N’ Roses, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Green Day, The Killers, Lewis Capaldi, and Arcade Fire among its key turns last summer. In addition to the flagship festivals, 2023 shows include Def Leppard and Mötley Crüe at Dublin’s Marlay Park in July; Blur, Sting + Blondie and Sam Fender at the capital’s Malahide Castle in June; and numerous other arena, outdoor
and theatre shows.

Aiken Promotions, meanwhile, righted a historic wrong with the long-awaited materialisation of five Croke Park shows by Garth Brooks, scheduled to take place in 2014 but pulled after Dublin City Council granted a licence for only three of them. Brooks finally performed all five before 400,000 fans in September, and Aiken boss Peter Aiken, son of Irish concert pioneer Jim Aiken, was clearly elated.

“This is the biggest thing we’ve ever done, and it is unlikely we’ll ever do anything as big as this again,”

“This is the biggest thing we’ve ever done, and it is unlikely we’ll ever do anything as big as this again,” he told The Sunday Life. “This is the biggest thing that has ever happened in Ireland. It would be hard to top this.”

Forthcoming Aiken shows include next May’s three Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band concerts at Dublin’s RDS Arena in Ballsbridge. The impresario has been robust in defence of the Boss’s rising Irish ticket prices, pointing in particular to the cost of public liability insurance in the Republic.

“Venues aren’t cheap to rent… I’m also paying 2022 costs, everything has gone through the roof – the cleaners, portable toilets, even the gardaí [the national police] have gone up in price,” said Aiken in May. Other Aiken properties include the Live at Botanic Gardens festival in Belfast and the Live at the Marquee series in Cork, as well as its ownership of Dublin’s Vicar Street venue.

“Venues aren’t cheap to rent… I’m also paying 2022 costs, everything has gone through the roof – the cleaners, portable toilets, even the gardaí [the national police] have gone up in price,”

And while the Irish business is a tough nut for newcomers to crack, DEAG is attempting to do so, with the 2020 launch, through Kilimanjaro Live, of joint venture Singular Artists, in which it holds a 55% stake, alongside promoters Fin O’Leary, Brian Hand and Simon Merriman.

At the time of writing, Singular Artists has a busy slate of club, theatre, arena, and stadium shows for artists ranging from Clannad to The Vamps to Editors, and DEAG has buttressed its expansion with the acquisition of a majority stake in Irish business Oshi Software, which operates ticketing
platform Tickets.ie.

“The Irish market is extremely attractive,” said DEAG CMO and executive board member Detlef Kornett at the time of the Singular Artists launch. “We will position ourselves there with top-class content, and grow,” said Kornett. “Already today, over 8,000 events are held in Ireland every year. Together with our own events, these form an excellent basis for the expansion of our ticketing activities to Ireland.”