Pearse Stadium concert promoters slam Galway City Council for 'lack of support'
From this week's Galway City Tribune - The organisers behind this Saturday’s Black Eyed Peas concert in Pearse Stadium have hit out at what they term the 'lack of support' from the local authority for major events in Galway.
The promoters of ‘Rise Live’ expected the gig to be a sell-out, but said this week that tickets are still available for the concert.
Meanwhile, the plug has been pulled on a separate ‘Salthill Live’ event scheduled to take place in the venue the following day and was to feature the likes of Nathan Carter, Una Healy, Sharon Shannon, Dan McCabe and Hermitage Green – understood to be cancelled due to poor ticket sales.
James Gavin of event management company Grooveyard managed to persuade the Black Eyed Peas – the US group behind ‘I Gotta Feeling’, which spent twelve weeks at Number 1 in Ireland – to play their only Irish gig after eleven years in Pearse Stadium.
He has partnered with Gary Monroe of Monroe’s Tavern to stage the event.
But instead of selling out as the promoters expected, there are still tickets for sale for the event, which will be met by sunshine and temperatures of 19°C.
Mr Monroe said the fact that Ed Sheeran did not return to Galway when he played in venues around the country last month was evidence that the city did not do enough to lure big concerts west of the Shannon.
“Galway is tricky. You won’t see the likes of MCD and Aiken Promotions staging anything here. There’s not enough support off the local council, the local representatives. It’s very, very poor support in fact,” he exclaims.
“There should be people saying, ‘what can I give you to make this a success’. They should be rolling out the red carpet like they do in Cork, Belfast, Limerick. It’s been so disappointing.
“We have been looking for road signs at key locations since the start of the year and have been given the run around, it’s all red tape. We have not been given one red cent – only they are looking to charge us €1,700 for cleaning," he said.
(Photo by Joe O'Shaughnessy: Keelan Lynch of the concert management team at Pearse Stadium on Thursday during preparations for the Black Eyed Peas concert this weekend).
This is a shortened preview version of this article. To read the rest of the story, see the June 3 edition of the Galway City Tribune. You can buy a digital edition HERE.