Ratoath man strikes it lucky in Vegas scoring front row U2 tickets to "gig of life time"
A Ratoath man who struck it lucky on a chance game of poker in Las Vegas and used the winnings to buy front row tickets to see U2’s sold out show says it was the “gig of a lifetime."
Aidan Hickey travelled to Vegas for to celebrate his sister Ro’s birthday. He was joined by his brothers John and Brendan, who lives in America and his wife, Nina.
The 42-year-old biohacker was hoping to score a ticket to the U2:UV Achtung Baby Live At Sphere opening concert in the new Las Vegas venue, but it was sold out with any tickets coming up for sale online going for excessive prices.
"I had no plans to go to U2, I had seen them before and they were great but I thought $700 is a daylight mugging kind of price for tickets,” he said. There were other gigs across the road like Lady Gaga or the boxing match with Canello that were a couple of hundred dollars each so I said I’ll go to that, you go to U2 and I’ll meet you afterwards.”
it was a case of the luck of the Irish coming through in sin city however as Aidan found himself on a winning streak.
"I won some money in poker at cash games and I play a bit of poker in Dublin,” he said. " I have a background in trading so I knew a few tactics I could use but I said I’d do one tournament just to see how I go.
"I came second in that which gave me an extra lump of cash I didn’t think I’d have. You don't go to Vegas to try and bring money back so i said I’ll spend it on something I’ll definitely remember!
The Ratoath man says he “couldn’t believe his luck” when he got a ticket online for well under the going rate.
"I was asking how to get tickets because it was sold out and I got good advice that if you are buying paper tickets there is a big chance of forgery so I was logging in and out of Ticketmaster with no joy and with about an hour and a half to go, a really low number ticket came up and I bought the ticket for $500. When I got there the seat was in the front row, it couldn’t have been a better ticket.
Aidan’s jammy streak continued when he discovered that he had scored a front row seat with four empty seats beside him!
"We were spread apart from each other in the crowd and i was sending the rest of them pictures of my seat at the front,” he said. "They thought I was rubbing it in and i said no look there are actually four seats beside me free, I said walk through security like you own the place so we all got to sit together front and centre so it couldn’t have worked out better!
Aidan says the much anticipated show was “spectacular.” He added:
"It was unbelievable. They put on a great show, they kind of had a story to the show, I knew they’d be brilliant but this surpassed anything else. The effects were just unbelievable with the show, with the sound, the sell out crowd, the whole lot together was the best show I have ever been at.
"The Sphere looks like something out of Terminator 2, the affects even from outside the building were just out of this world. A lot of the shops outside of the building were playing U2 songs, they had taken over Las Vegas.”
The poker enthusiast says there will be no gambling this weekend when he takes to Navan to see Ratoath play in the senior football final this Sunday.
"Betting with the heart you’d go Ratoath anyway no matter what,” he said. “Betting with the head you’d still go with Rataoth! "The team have great spirit so even when they are not playing at their best they are still getting big wins, my money will be Ratoath for that one for sure!"