Concert promoters MCD last year lost out on estimated revenue of €20m through the refunds of 300,000 concert tickets to music fans.
That is according to CEO of MCD Denis Desmond, who declared on Friday: “It is great to be back open”.
Mr Desmond said: “We have had 22 months without shows, it is a long time.”
Mr Desmond said that the 300,000 refunded tickets were for gigs cancelled due to Covid-19 that could not be rescheduled and that the estimated €20m in lost revenue “is a big number”.
Mr Desmond said that he was confident that MCD would return to the top 10 promoters in the world in terms of tickets sold this year.
He said: “We will sell between 1.6 million and 1.7 million tickets this year."
Mr Desmond and Caroline Downey co-own MCD along with Live Nation.
One of the main events of this year will be Electric Picnic at Stradbally in Co Laois in September after MCD was forced to cancel in 2020 and 2021 due to Covid-19.
New accounts filed by the EP Republic Ltd which stages Electric Picnic show that its revenues increased by 13 per cent from €14.98m to €16.9m in 2019.
However, higher costs resulted in pre-tax profits declining by 28pc from €2.48m to €1.78m.
Mr Desmond said that the license application for this year’s EP has been lodged with Laois County Council for 70,000 which was the same planned capacity for the cancelled 2020 event.
Mr Desmond said: “We can’t wait to bring EP back. We are ready to go, we hope to announce the line-up mid to late March.”
Looking to the year ahead, Mr Desmond said: “A lot of the shows that were due to happen in 2020 and 2021 will take place this year so it is going to be a busy year as we are fitting three years of shows into one year.”
Mr Desmond said that it is not stressful putting on that amount of gigs “because it is what we do. Everyone is very, very happy to be back at work”.
Mr Desmond said that Westlife will play before 170,000 fans over the Summer and added “Harry Styles, Eagles tickets sales flew out the door and Liam Gallagher is having very strong sales. It is all good.”
Accumulated profits at EP Republic at the end of December 2019 totalled €5.5m while the company’s cash funds reduced from €8m to €7.3m.
