Garth Brooks cancels massive Irish concerts on eve of worldwide tour announcement
Country-pop icon Garth Brooks is scheduled to make a major worldwide tour announcement on Good Morning America on Thursday. On Wednesday, though, he stuck to an all-or-nothing ethos that saw him cancel five upcoming sold-out concerts at Dublin’s Croke Park–where Brooks was scheduled to perform for 400,000 people.
The five-night controversy has been brewing for months in Ireland. Dublin government officials have a policy of issuing permits for no more than three musical performances at Croke Park, which is primarily a Gaelic games venue and soccer stadium.
Brooks’ management allowed the fourth and fifth shows to go on sale without winning an exemption to the rule. Brooks has said repeatedly that he will not play three shows, and leave 160,000 ticketholders with refunds but no concert.
“I cannot begin to tell you how badly my heart is breaking right now,” Brooks said, in a prepared statement. In part, the statement went on to read:
To do what the city manager suggests (play three shows and not all five) means I agree that is how people should be treated and I just can’t agree with that. Our guys are still en route and if there is any chance that the five planned concerts can be salvaged and nobody is being let down then we can proceed as planned until the refunds begin. If you tell me, ‘Garth, thanks but it is over’, I will cease my efforts and bring our people and gear back to the States. If you think for any reason that the ‘powers that be’ in Ireland can fix this, then I will faithfully go to the last second.
The concerts were to have taken place from July 25th through the 29th.
Brooks is no stranger to the venue. He performed two shows at Croke Park as part of his “World Tour II” in 1997. More recently, One Direction performed three shows at the venue, from May 23 to 25 of this year.
Starcasm will bring you all the details of Brooks’ tour announcement on the morrow, or as soon as they become available.
