Irish live music promoters MCD have announced they will stage an independent enquiry after a barrage of bad press in the Irish media following a disorganised Barbara Streisand concert in County Kildare on Saturday. They have even appointed a former police commissioner to lead the investigation, to give the post-concert postmortem credibility.
Scores of concert goers took their grievances to the media after Saturday night's gig, at which ticket holders, some of whom had spent up to £330 on tickets, reported waterlogged car parks, a severe lack of stewards and huge delays getting into the Castledown House venue. Despite the fact the concert went up 45 minutes late some ticket holders said they still missed a chunk of the event because of difficulties getting on site, while others, including holders of the most expensive tickets, reported that they found their seats already occupied when they finally got into the main performance area. Others complained about the fact there was a single road entrance to the concert site, even though a majority of the 17,000 ticket holders were arriving by car.
MCD confirmed they had received 127 formal complaints and that as a result they had asked retired police commissioner Pat Byrne to look into the problems at the event. A health and safety officer plus representatives from MCD, including its chief Denis Desmond, will also be on the team who conduct the enquiry.
In a statement designed to placate angry ticket holders and to bring to an end all the bad press, the promoters said yesterday: "MCD again wishes to apologise to all fans affected by Saturday night's events and ensures the issues will be dealt with effectively and efficiently by the specialist committee". Earlier MCD blamed the problems on a combination of bad weather, traffic congestion on a nearby motorway and opportunistic fans jumping into reserved seats after rain washed off seat numbers.