Not him again. Yeah we hear you, but perhaps this is slightly better news for those who were sick and tired of the drama that unfolded surrounding the Garth Brooks concerts in Croke Park previously scheduled for last year before being cancelled.
Since that event, reviews of what unfolded have been taking place, both in the councils to the politician debates and have finished with changes announced by the Department of the Environment. The result is a change in the concert licensing process to try avoid this ever happening again.
The first change is that concert promoters will not be allowed to advertise or sell tickets for an event before they have consulted with local authorities and gotten the go ahead.
Shows can then be announced and tickets sold, but applications for licenses must be submitted now thirteen weeks in advance, which is a small change up from the existing ten week timeline that was in place. With these changes they are hoping to eliminate the problems that plagued the five Garth Brooks shows.
It sounds like the requirement will be on the local council to sit and discuss any additional dates before they can be announced. This seems to suggest that the local council will have to uphold a decision to allow an event to go ahead if they give the event the go-ahead to sell tickets after formal consultation. This is all separate from the license application process which promoters must complete to meet event regulations.
It still does not make clear what would happen in the event of protests such as those from the residents of Croke Park, as these would happen long after tickets going on sale, which to avoid this happening again would mean that if tickets go on sale, the council have given approval that the show can take place as long as the required policing, safety, cleanup requirements of licensing are met. To do otherwise just means these extra steps would make absolutely no difference.
One thing that’s clear is that the 400,000 fans who bought tickets won’t be seeing Garth Brooks in Ireland anytime soon as he continues to tour around America selling out arena after arena. Currently he’s on a record 8 show run in Houston, Texas. This is roughly 160,000 tickets and a further 4 shows in Knoxville being another 80-90,000 tickets in his latest run of shows. Will he make it to Ireland some day for a further set of shows. Only time will tell.