The two concerts that English band Take That will be playing in Dublin this weekend are proving to be very lucrative for many of the city’s hotels that have been hard-pressed due to the downturn in trade from the on-going economic crisis. Take That are bringing their Progress tour to Dublin and will play two concerts on both Saturday and Sunday night. The concerts will take place in Croke Park and the crowd capacity over the two nights is expected to be somewhere around 165,000 in what may well prove to be the biggest music event of the year in Dublin.
The band has already arrived in Dublin and are reported to have booked the entire top floor of the Four Seasons hotel for themselves and their entourage. Ordinary fans, however, may not have the same luck if they have left it to the last minute to find a hotel room in the city. The Irish Times reported earlier in the week that the hotels.com website was showing that 235 hotels and guesthouses in Dublin had no availability left for Saturday night. Of those that did show availability it was reported that the Gresham had only a couple of rooms and the price was €390 for the night. The Fitzwilliam Hotel was reported as having just one room left at €380. A room at the Travelodge in Dublin Airport that was €69 on Friday night had increased to €220 for Saturday night.
The president of the Irish Hotels’ Federation, Paul Gallagher said Take That were a “phenomenal driver of demand” for hotel rooms in Dublin and he thought that all the hotels in the city would be near to capacity on Friday and Saturday night and almost full on Sunday night with concert-goers accounting for nearly 15,000 of the 48,000 beds available in Dublin. “This is about market force yield; it is not about a rip-off. Hotel rates are fluid every day of the year upward and downward. For 360 days of the year hotels are offering heavily discounted rates with some rates below a profitable offering.”