U2 smashes box office records
U2's long-awaited Dublin concerts smashed box office records today as 160,000 tickets were snapped up in less than 50 minutes.
Tickets for the Croke Park gigs on June 24 and 25 went on sale at 8am today and both dates were sold out within the hour.
Justin Green, spokesman for MCD Promoters, said: "It has set a new box office record. "Nothing like it has ever been seen in Ireland before.
"Unfortunately, there's thousands and thousands of disappointed fans all over the country which is disappointing, but there's only two dates confirmed."
He said that ticket outlets had been "bombarded" by fans. "We could have sold a million tickets," he added.
Some fans queued on Dublin's streets for three days to make sure they got tickets for the Irish leg of U2's Vertigo 2005 tour. Armed with sleeping bags, ski clothes, food and chairs, they camped outside St Stephen's Green Shopping Centre to be first in line at Ticketmaster.
Earlier this week, Bono and bandmates announced they would host two concerts at Croke Park, which fits almost 80,000 people, due to the phenomenal demand for tickets for the original gig.
The Dublin dates form part of the Irish rock band's worldwide Vertigo Tour which begins in San Diego on March 28.
The group will play in 13 US cities before performing 24 European gigs, finishing with Lisbon in August.
