All five Garth Brooks concerts planned to take place in Croke Park at the end of the month have been cancelled. Aiken Promotions said it has exhausted all avenues regarding the staging of the event.
*DUBLIN (Reuters) - American country singer Garth Brooks' five comeback concerts in Dublin this month were cancelled on Tuesday after two of the sold-out shows were denied permission to go ahead, the event's promoters said.
Ticket-master said that it is working on a plan to make the ticket return process as simple as possible, and this will be outlined tomorrow.
A council decision last week to uphold objections raised by local residents against the holding of five successive shows at the 82,000-seat Croke Park stadium has dominated the airwaves, newspaper front pages and been raised in parliament.
Brooks, who retired from recording new music and touring in 2001, chose Dublin for his five-night "Comeback Special Event", selling a record 400,000 tickets, equivalent to almost 10 percent of the population, before a wider tour later in 2014.
But after local media quoted the singer as saying he would play five shows or none at all, the concert's organiser, Aiken Promotions, said on Tuesday that no concerts would take place.
"Aiken Promotions have exhausted all avenues regarding the staging of this event," the promoters said in a brief statement, without giving any details as to why all five shows had been cancelled.
Brooks, who has sold more than 125 million albums and is best known for hits such as "The Thunder Rolls" and "Friends in Low Places", has played the occasional one-city show and benefit concert during his retirement but has never toured.
No act, including Ireland's U2, had ever played five shows in a row at the Croke Park Gaelic sports stadium, the country's largest venue. The concert promoters had said some 70,000 of the 400,000 tickets sold were bought by people living abroad.
Business groups from restaurants to publicans and hoteliers had warned that the economy would lose up to 50 million euros if the concerts did not proceed.
"The cancellation of all five concerts in July will tarnish the image of Ireland as a tourist destination to overseas visitors," Adrian Cummins, chief executive of the Restaurants Association of Ireland said in a statement.
(Reporting by Padraic Halpin; Editing by Larry King)
----------Ticket-master said that it is working on a plan to make the ticket return process as simple as possible, and this will be outlined tomorrow.
An application to prevent three licensed Garth Brooks concerts from going ahead later this month was expected to be heard by the High Court on Thursday.
Local resident Brian Duff had brought an application against Aiken Promotions and Croke Park seeking an injunction to prevent the shows on 25, 26 and 27 July from taking place.
Mr Justice Paul Gilligan granted permission to lawyers for Mr Duff to bring the injunction application on Thursday morning.
Meanwhile, the GAA has said it was not given any indication that a licence was likely to be refused for any of the five concerts.
In a statement, the GAA said it had engaged fully with Dublin City Council officials and addressed every issue presented during the planning process.
Taoiseach Enda Kenny said that the cancellation of the concerts is damaging to the country.
Speaking in the Dáil Mr Kenny said the entire episode was very badly handled.
Mr Kenny also said that a bill on the licencing of concerts proposed by Fianna Fáil's Timmy Dooley comes too late to affect the situation.
Minister for Arts Jimmy Deenihan has said that the cancellation of the concerts is an embarrassment for the country.
Speaking at Leinster House, Mr Deenihan said it was a huge disappointment and a huge loss of business for the capital.
The minister reiterated that a whole new process for licensing concerts would have to be put in place so there could never be a repetition of what happened.
Mr Brooks had been expected to make a statement on the concerts at a press conference scheduled for Thursday.
The country music star issued an "all-or-nothing" ultimatum last week after Dublin City Council refused a licence for him to perform two of his planned five-night run.
The Croke Park concerts were expected to be a precursor to a comeback world tour.
A spokesperson for the Garth Brooks' management company said the musician would not be making any comment.
Ireland's hospitality sector has reacted with shock at the announcement, with the Restaurants Association of Ireland saying the "fiasco tarnishes Brand Ireland's image as a destination to host large international music, sporting and cultural events."
It had been estimated that the five concerts would have generated up to €50m in revenue, with the RAI saying the restaurant industry expected to take in €15m.
The Irish Hotels Federation said the cancellation dealt a severe blow to Irish tourism with the group's president describing it as a "shambolic situation".
Stephen McNally said: "The knock-on effect in terms of reputational damage is extremely negative for Ireland and how we are viewed by potential overseas visitors".
Chief Executive of the Licensed Vintners Association Donall O'Keeffe said the decision was a "body blow" to the Dublin pub trade and all parties involved had "mishandled this matter from start to finish".
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