A Scottish dad has been priced out of surprising his daughter with Harry Styles tickets for her birthday due to the whopping £600 cost. Kevin Wood was looking to get tickets to surprise his little girl on her 12th birthday but realised it would not be possible.
11-year-old Emily fell in love with One Direction after their time on X-Factor and has loved Harry Styles ever since. When the school girl found out the star was coming to Scotland, she knew exactly what she wanted for her birthday.
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Emily told her dad that she would like to see Harry styles for her first concert and Kevin was initially excited to share that magical first experience with his daughter. That was, until he looked at tickets and realised that even on official sites, it would be at least £600 for a brief with travel to the venue not included.
The dad was gutted to let down his daughter but there was no feasible way to pay nearly £2000 for the family to go to the stadium gig. Kevin has had to explain to Emily why they couldn’t get tickets and is shocked a star with so many young fans could charge that much in a cost of living crisis.
Kevin also believes that the steep tickets are robbing many youngsters of that incredible experience of seeing your favourite band for the first time that he remembers back in 1993 when he saw U2 in Glasgow.
Speaking to Edinburgh Live, Kevin said: "my daughter has asked for them for her birthday but I just feel that £600 for myself, my wife and daughter is far too much. We live near Inverness so by the time we add in travel and accommodation etc it would likely be a £1,000 weekend.
"She’s 11, 12 on her birthday next month. Yeah I’ve had to try and manage expectations and say that is too much. Our hope was he would maybe add another date and maybe that one would be normal cost…but if not we just wouldn’t stretch to that much, even for a birthday.
"She hasn’t been to a gig before so wanted that one to be her first concert!"
The dad continued: "Tickets for stadium gigs would have been around £60 until the last year, now it’s just gone mad.
"The cheapest tickets we could get were £200 this time. Touts were clamped down on in recent years, now it seems the problem is even worse with legitimate sites being more expensive than touts."
Kevin has expressed his disappointment of missing that core memory with his little girl. He said: "It’s such a shame. I love going to gigs myself and can’t wait to take Emily to her first concert. I think your first gig is such a memory…and she’s going to miss out now.
"my first big gig was U2 In Glasgow in 1993. I’m sure younger music fans feel the same about Harry Styles as we did about U2.
"1D were her first big favourite band and she loves Harry Styles new album!"
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Harry Styles will be playing at Edinburgh's Murrayfield Stadium- along with other performances at London, Coventry, Cardiff and Dublin, Ireland. He will be supported by bands Wet Leg and Inhaler for some of the UK shows.
Earlier in the month we reported how Harry Styles fans in the capital were fuming after touts sold tickets for £5k after the presale.
Other prices for front normal standing tickets range from £305 to £885 per ticket, dependant on if you are searching for front or rear standing. Seats begin at £175, inflated massively from their original price of £51.75.
You can check out the presale for Harry Styles at BT Murrayfield Stadium in Edinburgh here - if there are any tickets left.
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