Oasis return: 11 steps to give you the best chance of getting tickets (2024)

Noel and Liam Gallagher will take to the Croke Park stage for two nights on August 16th and 17th as part of an Oasis tour which will also include dates in Cardiff, Manchester, London and Edinburgh.

Tickets for the Dublin dates go on sale this Saturday, August 31st, at 8am, an hour earlier than the tickets for the concerts in Britain will go live.

The time difference is only 60 minutes, but it is likely to see huge demand from fans across the world. If the demand for Taylor Swift and Coldplay is anything to go by, the Dublin tickets will be all gone before the British online box offices even open.

If you want the reunion tour to live forever in your memory, you’re going to have to look lively.

[Oasis: Dublin hotel rates rising - but still too early to count cost of reunion concertsOpens in new window]

[Share your experiences: What are your memories of attending Oasis concerts?Opens in new window]

1. You have a Ticketmaster account, right? If the answer is no, then you should sort it out right away as there will be absolutely no point in trying to set one up once the tickets go on sale.

2. If you do have an account make sure to have your username and password to hand. Trying to decide whether you went with your first cat or first born’s name at 7.55am on Saturday is not going to get you your tickets.

3. Set your alarm for 7.30am at the very latest and make sure you turn on your computer first thing. Machines have a habit of knowing when we need them to act fast and start moving grindingly slowly, possibly to wind us up. Don’t let the machines win by making sure you have everything turned on early, and make sure you are logged in to your Ticketmaster account by 7.50am at the very latest.

4. Double check you’re in the right place on the site and have selected the right concert – there might be an Oasis tribute act selling tickets on the platform at the weekend. They might well be good – but you don’t want to find yourself buying those tickets by mistake.

5. In the closing seconds of the countdown, starting hitting the refresh on the Ticketmaster event page until the Event Info button becomes a View Tickets button. Hitting the F5 key is the fastest way to refresh your browser. But – and we can’t stress this enough – do not lose the run of yourself. If you hit the button too quickly too often, the Ticketmaster algorithms might decide you are a bot and block your computer from accessing the site.

6. Have only one browser window open. If you try to load multiple browsers, you might well get an error message.

7. Do deploy more than one device and more than one family member to help you out. If there are two laptops and a tablet in your house, have them all open and ready to go. If you are flexible about when you go, you might want to have different devices open on a different day’s concert. It will then be your job to direct them all like an orchestra conductor.

8. When the View Tickets button becomes available you’re going to have to run – in a virtual sense – like the wind. Select the number of tickets you wish to buy – a ceiling of four per buyer has been set. Make sure you have the default best available option selected. If you are offered tickets, you don’t want to waste a moment wondering whether you want to sit in row F or row G.

9. Once you have “secured” tickets, you will have a short window in which to move to the next phase of the ticket-buying process. Don’t delay. Once you are brought through the payment process, you’re done – or almost. You will most likely have to verify the transaction with your bank, so make sure you have all the details you will need to do that to hand.

10. Do not expect to get tickets sent to you immediately. You will most likely not get sight of your virtual tickets until days before the concert, but when you do, remember to download and store them in your virtual wallet before going to the concert.

If you do miss out, be very wary of any tickets that appear for sale in the months ahead. If someone offered you a ticket on a social media platform, treat the offer with deep, deep suspicion unless you know the person personally.

11. But before all that there is the so called “ballot registration” that opened on Tuesday night.

A post to the band’s X page said: “Register for the UK and Ireland 2025 tour presale ballot. A ticket presale will be held on Friday 30th August, in advance of Saturday’s general sale. To ensure the maximum number of fans have a fair opportunity to access tickets, applicants will be selected for the presale via a ballot. Ballot registration is open now and will close at 7pm BST, this Wednesday 28th August. Successful applicants will receive an email with full access information the morning of Friday 30th August. Success in the ballot will not guarantee tickets. Tickets will be allocated on a first come first served basis.”

A second post said confirmation emails “may be delayed” due to “an extremely high volume of entries”, adding “everyone who has correctly filled out the ballot form before 7pm Wednesday, August 28th will receive the confirmation email”.

You have been warned.

• Sign up for push alerts and have the best news, analysis and comment delivered directly to your phone
• Join The Irish Times on WhatsApp and stay up to date
• Listen to our Inside Politics podcast for the best political chat and analysis