Frony row, back of the queue
Irish homegrown rockstars Fontaines DC are heading on their biggest UK and Ireland run yet, with six arena dates in November alone. Belfast isn’t one of them, though NI band Chalk is supporting on every date. For Belfast students, a headline gig is a trip. General admission for the November shows ranged from £39 to £91, before your fuel, ferry or flight. For most students living on a loan and working part-time shifts at minimum wage, this could seem unattainable.
Research by marketing agency Dark House found gig prices have risen 237% in 20 years, far outpacing inflation, which the Office for National Statistics puts at 77.4%, and far and away from my dad’s £10 Nirvana ticket from 1992. This is resulting in Generation Z being priced out of valuable memories and experiences that those who came before us saw as a given.
Price points like those of Fontaines matter because of who can access what. Whether tickets are dynamically priced, are released in tiers or stay at a fixed number, someone who can buy instantly from their phone or laptop, who has a card at hand and doesn’t need to send some money from their savings, will always beat the student who is booking between lectures.
Rises after the tickets are released, which have drawn more and more pushback since the Oasis row in 2024, affect young people the most. In a speech in May, the King included a ‘Ticket Tout Ban’ bill that would make resale above original cost illegal, with capped platform fees. But it is still stuck in pre-legislative purgatory, with no end in sight. The resale cap wouldn’t limit original ticket pricing. Dynamic pricing and tiered releases are going nowhere soon.
In Belfast, it remains the same regarding fees deciding who gets in. The Ulster Hall’s winter listings go from £22 to £35, with a £3.25 fee. The Black Box lists some events with a £5 low-income ticket alongside a £10 general admission price, the kind of tier that lets young people feel like a night out isn’t out of reach. Smaller rooms matter because they are where the next Fontaines or Chalk finds their audience, and Belfast does them right- Voodoo, The Oh Yeah Centre, Ulster Sports Club and the aforementioned Black Box are pillars of the local music scene, arts scene and local community as a whole.
If students can only afford one gig a year, or none, young people lose out. Whether they are musicians, music enjoyers, or students looking to have a pint and dance. Belfast’s music scene is producing big names like Kneecap and Chalk, and it will continue to do so. Whether the people who might be their audience can afford to follow them is a much harder question.