Accommodation prices in Townsville have skyrocketed by thousands of dollars a night as fans scramble to find a place to stay for two surprise P!nk concerts.
Key points:
- P!nk will play two shows in Townsville as part of her Australian tour
- The weekend is expected to inject almost $20 million into the local economy
- Accommodation is almost sold out and prices have soared
Tickets to the international pop star’s March 2024 show at the Townsville Stadium sold out within 16 minutes of going on sale last week.
A second concert date was added amid the frenzied demand.
“What we saw was over 60,000 people trying to get tickets [to the first performance],” Townsville Enterprise chief executive Claudia Brumme-Smith said.
P!nk will be the first musician to perform at the Townsville Stadium since Sir Elton John in early 2020.
Townsville Enterprise estimates the weekend will inject almost $20 million into the region’s economy.
But securing a room for the Friday and Saturday night shows is proving challenging and expensive task for fans.
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One room that would cost $175 tonight is listed on Booking.com for $748 on the night of the Friday P!nk concert.
Another $300 “standard triple room” listing has been inflated to more than $4,000 for the Saturday show.
One Airbnb is charging more than $5,000 a night.
Mackay woman Tayla Francis, who will be attending the concert with her parents and brother, said she was shocked by the lack of affordable accommodation options.
“We jumped on and had a look and there was literally nothing – nothing on Booking.com, nothing on Airbnb,” she said.
“As soon as you would ring the hotels and say you wanted to book accommodation for [P!nk], the hotels would be like ‘no, no, no, no’.”
Ms Francis managed to book a powered campsite and said she planned to pitch a tent for the weekend.
“It wasn’t the idea I had in mind when I pictured a weekend away for P!nk,” she said.
Vickie-Lee Creighton, who manages the QCWA Kissing Point Units, said she was booked out within hours of the performer announcing her first show.
“We’re running at 30-plus people on the waitlist and it grows every day,” she said.
“There literally is just not enough accommodation for these kinds of events – and with the price-gouging going on, it just makes it that much worse for tourism here.”
Ms Creighton said it was “unreal” to see other accommodation providers dramatically increase their rates for the P!nk weekend.
“As you get to that Friday, Saturday and even Sunday, they are marked up incredibly – I’ve even seen $2,500 per night, just for a standard little one-bedroom apartment,” she said.
“It’s hard to stomach and hard to believe that it’s skyrocketed so quickly.
“It’s just unrealistic for the average family, couple, anyone to be able to afford that.
“I don’t see the point in stiffing families who just want to come and see P!nk.
“It might be, for some people, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”
Ms Brumme-Smith said price gouging, especially on Airbnb, was “upsetting” and damaging for Townsville’s reputation.
“This is the first concert post COVID, so if we are not presenting a really professional image, we might not get another one,” she said.
“I really urge everyone that has the houses on Airbnb to do the right thing – it’s just not a good look for Townsville as an event destination and that’s we’re certainly not what we need right now.”
She also encouraged fans to shop around for a better deal.
Townsville Enterprise has created a short list of places to stay in the city for under $400 a night.