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9th August 2012
01:37pm BST
Irish rockers Aslan have revealed that cancelling their stadium gig in Tallaght has cost them a massive €80,000.
According to The Irish Daily Mirror, the band were forced to cancel the huge gig because of poor ticket sales which failed to sell even when prices were slashed.
However, front man Christy Dignam said he’s happy that they have scaled down the concert despite the cost.
“We lost about €80,000 euro on the Tallaght gig.
“We needed to sell 10,000 tickets just to break even… and we had sold 4,500.
“The way the band works is we gig all round and that’s how we make our money, it all goes into the Aslan pot and it pays our wages and for recordings,” he said.
Christy said the band could not even go on holiday this year because of the staggering bill.
“We were all supposed to go on holidays after the June gig but those were all cancelled and the money wasn’t there to do any.
“And there was no money in the kitty to pay wages.
“So it can be a bit of a sickener but what can you do,” he asked.
The rocker said the Tallaght gig was not feasible when tickets were selling so poorly.
“We were going to have to pay the Kaiser Chiefs [their support act] another deposit and pay for the sheeting to protect the grass which would have meant another €100,000 outlay in a week or two.
“So we reduced the price of the tickets but it wasn’t enough of a boost. So we couldn’t take the risk.
“It’s our 30th anniversairy this year – we wanted to be a bit ambitious and it didn’t work out so what can you do,” he asked.
Christy revealed that the Aslan boys had many ambitions for 2012.
“We started off with three ambitions of our 30th year.
“We wanted to make a film of our career and do an album which was going to be critically acclaimed and then play Tallaght stadium.
“And we did two of those three things. If you asked me would I rather the album Nudie Books And Frenchies was critically acclaimed than play Tallaght Stadium then I would tell you ‘of course’.
I would have been p*ssed off if we’d sold out Tallaght and the album hadn’t been received well.
Christy thinks the recession is the reason the Tallaght show did not sell out.
Her.ie isn’t so sure about that one Christy…
