Garth Brooks' one scheduled performance Nov. 14 at the new Sprint Center in Kansas City, Mo., quickly spiraled into nine shows. On Saturday, the artist moved nearly 160,000 tickets in less than two hours at ticket outlets and via online and telephone sales.
Brooks will now play Kansas City Nov. 5-12 and 14, with support from his wife, country star Trisha Yearwood. These will be the most shows he has played in nearly a decade, but the ongoing frenzy surrounding the artist was clearly demonstrated to longtime Brooks promoter Ben Farrell on Saturday.
"In all honesty, it was the most exciting day I've had in my career," Farrell tells Billboard.com, adding that he thinks more tickets could have been sold. "Let me tell you this and I mean it sincerely: the bottom line is when Garth Brooks put his last show on sale and it sold out, there is no question in my mind that we could've done well over 200,000 people."
As previously reported, Brooks will issue a three-disc boxed set, "The Ultimate Garth Brooks," Nov. 6 via his own Pearl Records. The set will contain a 34-track, two-CD greatest hits retrospective with four new songs, a DVD with videos -- many of them recently filmed -- for all tracks on the CDs.
Last time Brooks toured, he shattered U.S. touring records with an outing centered around his 1998 Capitol release, "Sevens." The three-year extravaganza grossed more than $105 million (country's first $100 million run) and drew close to 5.5 million people. Notably, Brooks charged a relatively paltry $20 per ticket when he likely could have demanded three times that amount.
Since retiring, Brooks has made sporadic live appearances, including a Hurricane Katrina benefit, a Grand Ole Opry appearance in 2005 and a more recent performance at a Live Earth concert in Washington, D.C. He previously said he would not embark on a full-blown tour until his youngest daughter graduates from high school in 2015.
Brooks will now play Kansas City Nov. 5-12 and 14, with support from his wife, country star Trisha Yearwood. These will be the most shows he has played in nearly a decade, but the ongoing frenzy surrounding the artist was clearly demonstrated to longtime Brooks promoter Ben Farrell on Saturday.
"In all honesty, it was the most exciting day I've had in my career," Farrell tells Billboard.com, adding that he thinks more tickets could have been sold. "Let me tell you this and I mean it sincerely: the bottom line is when Garth Brooks put his last show on sale and it sold out, there is no question in my mind that we could've done well over 200,000 people."
As previously reported, Brooks will issue a three-disc boxed set, "The Ultimate Garth Brooks," Nov. 6 via his own Pearl Records. The set will contain a 34-track, two-CD greatest hits retrospective with four new songs, a DVD with videos -- many of them recently filmed -- for all tracks on the CDs.
Last time Brooks toured, he shattered U.S. touring records with an outing centered around his 1998 Capitol release, "Sevens." The three-year extravaganza grossed more than $105 million (country's first $100 million run) and drew close to 5.5 million people. Notably, Brooks charged a relatively paltry $20 per ticket when he likely could have demanded three times that amount.
Since retiring, Brooks has made sporadic live appearances, including a Hurricane Katrina benefit, a Grand Ole Opry appearance in 2005 and a more recent performance at a Live Earth concert in Washington, D.C. He previously said he would not embark on a full-blown tour until his youngest daughter graduates from high school in 2015.
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