Ireland’s Tickets.ie - basically a subsidiary of DEAG since 2022 - has ceased trading and is heading into liquidation, leaving promoters who have sold tickets through the ticketing platform uncertain on whether they’ll see any of the money they are owed. One promoter has told The Journal he could lose €135,000.
A statement on the Tickets.ie website says the company’s directors “are taking steps to place the company into liquidation and appoint a liquidator over the company”, adding that “the winding up is being conducted in accordance with the Companies Act”.
Customers with tickets for upcoming shows are told they “should wait to hear from the relevant event promoter directly regarding their event”, while any other enquiries “should be directed to the appointed liquidator whose details will be published here once appointed”.
Founded in 2004 by John O’Neill, Tickets.ie was hit hard by the COVID pandemic and resulting shutdown of live entertainment. As a result, in 2022 it went through the Small Company Administrative Rescue Process, which is a simplified debt-restructuring process available to smaller businesses in Ireland.
It successfully exited that process after securing investment from Myticket Services, the UK-based ticketing company owned by German live entertainment business DEAG. That investment made DEAG the majority shareholder in Tickets.ie, with O’Neill retaining a minority stake.
Neither O'Neill nor DEAG have as yet commented on the closure of Tickets.ie beyond the official statement published on the company’s website. It remains to be seen how many Irish promoters are hit by the company’s collapse.
Simon Power, promoter of the Cowboys And Heroes festival in County Leitrim, which took place last weekend, says he discovered the announcement about Tickets.ie ceasing operations when he logged on to create an invoice for the €135,000 he is due.
Speaking to The Journal, he adds that the closure statement “really took my breath away”. Expressing frustration at the “lack of answers” from his contacts at the ticketing company, Power explains that this year’s edition of his festival simply wasn’t “big enough” to “be able to absorb that kind of money”.
He’s now waiting for an update from his legal team but, he concludes, “it doesn’t look great”.