Oasis superfan's dream to travel from Japan to see gig scuppered by rip off tickets

An Oasis super fan says she is “heartbroken" that plans to travel over 9000km from her home in Japan for the trip of a life time to see the Gallagher brothers in Dublin have been scuppered due to “rip off’ ticket pricing.

Despite being a 23 hour flight away, Navan native Maryellen Duren (38) had her heart set on seeing the iconic band when they take their Oasis Live 25 tour to Croke park next August however like many on Saturday, she was instead left crying her heart out with the only available tickets left costing an eye watering €450 each.

Outraged fans have voiced their anger at the ‘dynamic' pricing model, where original sale tickets for the reunion tour saw prices soar past €400, a significant hike from the initial €86.50 price tag when sales kicked off on Saturday. In 2022 it was decided that when there is an increase of demand, a limited supply are allowed to go up in price.

Maryellen who lives in Iwakuni approximately 600 miles southwest of Tokyo with her U.S marine husband and two children is due to visit Ireland this December for the first time in over ten years but the Oasis mega fan was willing to make a second journey home next year to see her heroes in concert.

"The minute I heard that they were back together and were going were doing concerts, I said to my husband Josh, I’m going, we have to get tickets!” said Maryellen.

"I saw them live back in 2002 at Witness music festival, I have been a fan since the beginning and I was so happy when I heard there was going to be a reunion tour,” she added.

Maryellen says trying to secure tickets was like ‘a military operation' with numerous members of family set up to get in the online queue, however all efforts were thwarted when ticket prices skyrocketing as frenzied fans tried to bag the coveted passes to see the Britpop legends live for the first time in 15 years.

"I watched hours of YouTube videos to find out what was the best strategy for getting tickets,” said the Navan native.

“I had two Ticketmaster accounts so I was set up with my phone and my computer, then my son Hunter was on his laptop, my eleven year old daughter Zoey was on her iPad and my husband Josh was on his phone,” she added

"So there was four of us with five accounts trying to get tickets and then my brother in Dublin he also had two accounts and was on two devices trying to get tickets as well so it was like a military operation.

"One of my accounts hit the queue at 70,000 and got down to 29,000 So I thought we definitely have a chance. When we finally got in and realised there were still tickets left, I was beside myself with excitement but then I saw that these in demand tickets, the only ones available to buy were €450, when they had previously had been around €170.

"When you add them to the card and all the fees it was going to be €2000 for the same tickets that other people had just paid a fraction of the price for. It was devastating”

Maryellen who works as a special education teacher said even though she believes the gigs will be “historic” she refused to pay the astronomic fee saying she "wouldn’t give Ticketmaster the satisfaction."

"How can the team behind Oasis keep pushing the line of make sure you buy them from the genuine websites and not secondary sellers because you will get scammed and then Ticketmaster literally do that, it’s just the legal way of doing it?" asked Maryellen.

"I’m disappointed that Oasis themselves haven’t addressed that part of it. They themselves are from a working class background, would they have been able to afford these kind of tickets back in the day in Manchester when they were growing up as young music lovers?” added the mum of two.

"The cost of living is so high today, it’s ridiculous to think they’d expect someone to fork out nearly €500 for one ticket that someone paid €90 for 45 minutes earlier."

So dedicated to the cause, Maryellen and family were willing to take on the gruelling flight to Dublin to see the iconic band live.

"It would have been 23 hours of travel in all from Iwakuni to Tokyo, Tokyo to Germany and then Germany to Dublin but I didn’t care, nothing was going to stop me or so I thought!

"I was in Hiroshima yesterday and went into Tower Records and I was looking at Oasis CDs and on the back of one was a poster from a live concert they did in 1996 in England and the tickets were £22 and I was thinking that’s outrageous inflation!

Maryellen who has lived in Estonia, Bangladesh, Denmark, the U.S and Japan as a result of her husband's marine deployment says she is looking forward to returning to Ireland later this year.

"We are coming back for the entire month of December, I can’t wait to come home and for Hunter and Zoey to see Ireland and Navan and where I grew up."