Irish politicians have called for a change to the law following the collapse of DEAG-owned ticketing platform tickets.ie, with several festivals collectively owed hundreds of thousands, and little clarity as to how much of that money they may get back now that the ticketing company is heading into liquidation.
During a debate in the Irish parliament this week, politicians said there should be legal protections for promoters when ticketing companies go bust, and that the lack of such protections is “a serious flaw in the legislation that has to be fixed”.
Meanwhile, organisers of three of the festivals that are owed money by tickets.ie have filed papers with the Irish High Court requesting that a liquidator of their choice be appointed.
They have also told the court that they are “deeply suspicious” about the timing of the closure of the ticketing platform, which occurred the day after the bank holiday weekend when all three festivals took place, just as the company was due to pay hundreds of thousands of euro to the three promoters.
Tickets.ie, launched in 2004 by John O’Neill, previously faced financial challenges during the COVID shutdown of live entertainment. That’s when Germany-based DEAG stepped in to help, via its UK subsidiary Myticket Services, making it a majority shareholder in the Irish business.
The latest issues came to light earlier this month when the Tickets.ie website was replaced with a statement declaring that the platform had “ceased trading” and that its directors “are taking steps to place the company into liquidation and appoint a liquidator over the company”.
Organisers of the Rockathon Festival, Cowboys And Heroes Festival and Rory Gallagher Festival all found that statement when they logged on to the ticketing website to file invoices for what they were owed from ticket sales for their respective 2026 editions. They are reportedly respectively owed €180,000, €135,000 and €283,000 - so just under €600,000 in total.
According to IQ, court papers filed by the three festivals explain that the promoter of the Rockathon Festival received an email on 2 Jun, just before the closure statement went live online, stating that the event’s payments were being processed.
Organisers of the Rory Gallagher Festival were told that an invoice for what they were owed was ready to be downloaded from the company’s portal.
But the promoters couldn’t access the portal, which closed down shortly after those emails were sent, while the ticketing company’s support phone number was also disconnected.
They have since received an email stating that a creditors meeting is being planned, though there is currently no date for that. The three festivals say they now want liquidators from the firm Azets to be appointed to wind up the ticketing company.
The potential financial losses these three festivals now face was referenced during a discussion on the tickets.ie collapse in the Dáil Éireann, the lower house of the Irish Parliament, yesterday.
According to the Irish Examiner, Sinn Féin’s Pearse Doherty noted in particular that if the Rory Gallagher Festival can’t access the €283,000 it is owed, “that’s literally wipe out territory”, before adding “that cannot happen”.
Independent Ireland’s Ken O'Flynn pointed out that, “when a licensed travel agent collapses, customers’ moneys are protected”, because “long ago” the Irish parliament recognised that it was in the public interest to have safeguards in law.
“It should trouble every member of this house”, he went on, “that ticketing agencies in this state, that may hold hundreds of thousands of euro belonging to promoters and ticket buyers, can collapse overnight with no equivalent protections - that is, no ring fencing, no bond and no money supplied”.
Doherty added, “there is a serious flaw in the legislation that has to be fixed - this should never be allowed to happen and it has to be dealt with”.
Responding, Ireland’s Enterprise Minister Peter Burke said he accepted there might be a “gap in the regulatory environment” and that this was a cause for concern. He then said his team would look into this issue, “because we want to ensure that maximum protections are afforded to client monies being held by any organisation”.
Meanwhile, with regards to tickets.ie, Burke said there were now set rules for how the liquidation process will be managed, but in the meantime, “I have asked my department to investigate what we can do and what support we offer”. However, he cautioned, “I don’t want to make false promises”.