Bruce Springsteen’s concert promoter Peter Aiken has said he is “disappointed” for music fans who were stuck outside Croke Park when The Boss went on stage – as Croke Park bosses say the situation was “unacceptable”.
Mr Aiken, of Aiken Promotions, has apologised to music fans after they were left fuming on social media about the backlog trying to get into the venue on Sunday night. A significant portion of the 80,000 Springsteen fans were left on the street outside the GAA stadium on Sunday in queues waiting to get in to the sold-out gig.
Mr Aiken apologised for what happened and said he was “disappointed” personally that people had that experience. He told the Irish Mirror: “I’m very disappointed. I’m the promoter. I am responsible. That’s it. “People are disappointed. When he went on, there were still 10,000 people to come in,” he said.
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The problem arose after stewards had to check every ticket coming into the venue, which added to the long queues that formed along Clonliffe Road leading towards the stadium. There were also delays when it came to scanning of the electronic tickets, with bright sunshine shining on phone screens significantly slowing down the process.
On a normal day, a ticket can be scanned in a couple of seconds but because of the glare, the process was taking in excess of 15 seconds, which added to the delays, Mr Aiken said.
He said: “I know everybody got in but they missed one or two songs. It is just, you know, you want it to be brilliant. You want it to work. It’s just unfortunate.”
Mr Aiken said he plans to sit down and have a look at other ways to improve crowd controls at the gates. "When you sit down, you always want to look at what went wrong as opposed to what went right. There were a few issues that could’ve been handled better,” he said.
Croke Park officials also told the Irish Mirror it was “unacceptable” what happened and apologised to fans.
A spokesman said: “We agree that the queuing and entry into the stadium was unacceptable. We would like to apologise to fans who were frustrated with long queues and to thank them for their good behaviour. We will review the event management plan with the statutory services and in turn with the promoters to see what lessons can be learned.”
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