AC/DC’s Power Up tour sets new concert box office record for first-day sales

AC/DC’s no-nonsense, fans-first attitude is the secret behind the band breaking Ticketek’s record for the biggest tour first-day sales.

Buying tickets to the hottest concerts and sporting events in Australia is an anxiety-spiking online hell.

Yet we keep lining up in those virtual queues, often for hours, to secure the prize, with AC/DC fans breaking Ticketek’s record for a music tour’s first day sale last week.

Fans who made it out of the “lounge” to the checkout snapped up 320,000 tickets to the band’s Power Up concerts in November and December.

That first day of sales last Thursday eclipsed the band’s previous record of 240,000 tickets for the Black Ice tour in 2009, which was the previous biggest concert on-sale day in Ticketek’s history.

The huge demand to welcome AC/DC back to Australia’s stadiums after a decade’s absence was funnelled into the general sale as the egalitarian rockers are old school and don’t do ticket pre-sales, preferring everyone gets an equal shot.

Most stadium-sized tours – think box office slayers Ed Sheeran, P!nk and Taylor Swift – offer promoter, credit card and telco-affiliated pre-sales over multiple days before the general sale.

Or the artists add extra shows that go on sale at a later date.

As the AC/DC shows went on sale – at staggered times for each city’s gig to spread the online traffic across the day – “second and final” concerts were added to Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane and immediately available to purchase.

AC/DC set a first day sales box office record last week. Picture: Christie Goodwin.

There are still seats available on Ticketek to the upper bays from $203 and some premium tickets for more than $400 to see the hard rock heroes, three days after the box office launch.

And unlike the recent flood of complaints about virtual queues of more than 200,000 for the Ashes tickets sale, the AC/DC fans mostly hit social media to confirm they had been successful – or share their position in the queue, the new social media trend for ticket sales.

“It was an absolute nightmare getting tickets during the Ashes pre-sale, but I had no issues with AC/DC today,” one fan posted.

But it was an infuriating experience for a raft of hopeful ticket buyers who made it through only to be booted to the back of queue when they pressed the pay button.

“Selected tickets for AC/DC, hit pay, got punted back to the lounge behind 50,000 other people. F...ing ridiculous,” an irate fan wrote.

Ed Sheeran holds the record for the most tickets sold on an Australian tour. Picture: Jake Nowakowski

There was also a recurring problem for some exasperated fans who protested they got to the front of the queue to be rudely greeted with a “restricted access” message and booted back to square one.

“Beyond frustrated, waiting for an hour to get to the front of the queue and be told my access is restricted & now 60k in the queue, I frequently purchase AFL tix with no issue, this service has to be looked into,” wrote a disappointed fan on X.

Ticketek advised fans ahead of the AC/DC sale to disable VPNs or IP-masking tools as “your unique IP helps us confirm you’re a real person, not a bot.”

Honorary Aussie P!nk is the highest selling female touring artist here. Picture: Tom Parrish

Other tips include turning off any browser extensions and to access sales from a single browser on one device only to reduce the risk of triggering bot detection and being booted to the back of the queue.

While Ed Sheeran, P!nk and Taylor Swift have moved more tickets on their tours of Australia over the past two years, rolled out over pre-sales and a general public sale, AC/DC was the biggest first-day seller for Ticketek.

This past summer saw the highest live event sales in nearly a decade, with two million Australians buying tickets.

The box office agency achieved another record last Thursday with over 370,000 tickets moved in a single day, setting a new all-time high for daily sales and surpassing the previous record set during The Ashes on-sale earlier this month.

In addition to the AC/DC tickets, Ticketek traded almost 50,000 tickets to other events including NRL and AFL matches.