Live at the Marquee surpasses 1.1 million ticket sales

More than 1.1 million tickets have been sold for Live at the Marquee concerts since the music festival first came to Cork 14 years ago.

The Marquee began in 2005 and has since become a major part of Cork’s summer schedule. The festivities kick off on June 8 when Aslan and Damien Dempsey raise the curtain.

With the iconic yellow and blue marquee set to return again, promoter Peter Aiken told The Echo, they have recently just gone over the 1.1 million mark in ticket sales for the event.

“We’ve been promoting events for 58 years so we know a thing or two about it and we can see the trend when it comes to buying tickets. With the Marquee, we have just gone over 1.1 million ticket sales, it’s a lot of tickets,” Mr Aiken said.

Over 30 days, musicians and comedians will come to perform in Cork and already a host of shows are sold out with others on the brink too.

Mr Aiken said many of this year's gigs are already sold out. "Tommy Tiernan has sold out one night, David Gray has sold out, Versatile has sold out. I can tell you the ones that are going to sell out too, Kris Kristofferson is definitely going to sell out and One Day is going to sell out.”

Making their first appearance in Cork, Toto will be performing on June 15 while Australian singer-songwriter Tash Sultana plays in Leeside for the first time too on July 3. The One Day festival will see world-class DJ’s Gorgon City, Duke Dumont and Sonny Fodera all perform at the marquee on June 22.

Currently, more than half of the shows are not sold out, Aiken says that sales are going very well and that it’s the normal trend for tickets not to sell out until just before the event.

“One Day will probably sell out just two days before, you can see the trend, like 30 or 40 tickets go a day and that trend doesn’t stop, you’re quite happy to just let it go,” Mr Aiken explained.

Rod Stewart’s recent concert in Páirc Uí Chaoimh sold out only days before with 38,000 fans inside the stadium. While Aiken Promotions latest figures project that 72,000 people will be attending Live At The Marquee this year.

This means over 110,000 people will have put money into the local economy by the time Live At The Marquee ends on July 8th with Darren Hall and John Oates.