File this one under “things we didn’t know about how popular Garth Brooks was in Ireland,” which admittedly is quite a narrow field of study, but a pretty wild one nonetheless. How popular is he in Ireland? He got the Irish government to form a committee over his proposed five sold out concerts.
Over on r/popculturechat someone asked all the non-Americans, “what are some American songs, shows or films that would surprise Americans with how huge they were in your country?”
One comment in particular stands out: “Garth Brooks is huge in Ireland. There was a whole fiasco in 2014 where he sold 400,000 tickets in 24 hours (in a country of circa 6 million at that time) for a series of 5 concerts to be held in the biggest stadium in Dublin, Croke Park.”
What?! You’re telling me Garth Brooks is the Taylor Swift of Ireland? Let’s dig in a little here. Per The Guardian in 2014, it was an issue between residents in Dublin and concert promoters.
Brooks sold out five (!) concerts at Croke Park stadium, which holds 80,000 people. That’s 400,000 people, by the way. Local residents complained, and the Dublin city council limited the concerts from five to three. This means that 160,000 people would not get to see him, and would have to be refunded.
Brook’s response is pretty legendary: “All five or nothing.” Respect. It was apparently all people could talk about in Ireland, and it dominated news coverage for days. Eventually, the government announced a special Irish parliamentary committee meant to solve the issue.
However, Brooks turned down the solution, which was having two matinee shows before the three night shows. Brooks didn’t like the idea of people having different experiences at his show.
“To treat 160,000 people differently than all the rest and to see a show other than how it was meant and created is wrong,” he said. The concert never happened, and the city lost out on $200 million (adjusted for inflation) in revenue.
Lucky for the Irish, Brooks came back to the same venue in 2022, and you guessed it, he sold 400,000 tickets and sold out five shows again. Per the Irish Examiner, Brooks revealed he could’ve sold out two more shows.
“The opportunity came up about a year ago to play again and I didn’t think it would ever happen after the regulators pulled the plug on the five concerts in 2014 and swept the whole thing out from under our feet. How many times do you get to sell 400,000 tickets twice — but they blew through them twice.”
Brooks said the country “blew us away.”
Maybe he’ll come back in 2030 for seven shows.