The music festival season in Ireland launched in May with four performances by Bruce Springsteen and will be drawing to a close this weekend with four gigs from the British band, Coldplay, at Croke Park. By the close of play on Monday evening, nearly one-twentieth of Ireland’s populace will have witnessed a performance by the English group.
Every single one of the 320,000 tickets for the Coldplay shows on Thursday, Friday, Sunday, and Monday nights have been sold. It’s a feature only a handful of global artists possess, to sell such a vast amount of tickets. Three wholly sold-out signs were exhibited at the Ticketmaster stand at Croke Park on Thursday evening, serving as a clear message to tardy fans. Their World Tour, “Music of the Spheres”, is among the most well-attended, with an impressive total of 9.1 million tickets sold worldwide till now.
Among the larger concerts in Ireland over the summer, Coldplay has drawn an audience of the widest age range, which also saw performances from Taylor Swift and AC/DC in Dublin. It was noticeable that the gender split in the crowd of fans anticipated to be quite balanced.
Those committed to the band arrived hours in advance at the Cusack Stand, aiming to secure the first entry into the pit for the Thursday evening performance. Among these fans was Mercedes Gonsalez, an expectant mother who had booked her tickets a year in advance. Despite being seven months pregnant, she was prepared to experience her first Coldplay concert, with her friends Elaena Dominguez and Anny Torres holding a place for her in the queue out of consideration for her condition.
Also coming to Dublin exclusively for this concert were two Spanish women, Alejandra Gutiérrez and Isabel Rojas. Despite the band not performing in Spain or singing in Spanish, they remain committed fans. Pat Bannon from Limerick, another fan, had previously seen them live in Buenos Aires, greatly praising their uniqueness and spectacular performance.
Diana Merkalydn journeyed to the Croke Park concert all the way from the Netherlands. She’s a fervent attendee who has been to 16 concerts on the present tour, making it 19 shows overall. During the past couple of years, she’s been on a journey of exploration to locations she’d never visited before to see the concert. She’s found the entire experience simply breathtaking, with each gig offering something distinctive.
She alongside her acquaintance, Melissa Heinhuins, managed to acquire tickets only for the Thursday night performance at Croke Park, due to the overwhelming demand in Ireland.
The Irish aficionados of Coldplay had already had a treat when Chris Martin, the lead vocalist, showed up on Grafton Street on the preceding Wednesday evening for the promotion of their latest collaborative track, We Pray. A video showcasing his performance amidst the large crowd that assembled on the street was later exclusively shared on TikTok.