Garth Brooks Makes Concert History, Takes ALS Ice Bucket Challenge
Garth Brooks is at it again. The country superstar, who will be returning to the road in September, has added one last show to his Chicago run, bringing the total to 11 concerts there. Tickets for the 10:30 p.m. show on Friday, September 5th, at Allstate Arena go on sale Saturday, August 23rd, 10:00 a.m. CST via Ticketmaster.
With the first stop on his world tour, which kicks off September 4th in Chicago, Brooks has already shattered his previous record for ticket sales in a single city in North America. Previously, the record was 162,822 tickets sold for the Target Center in Minneapolis from October 6th through the 14th, 1998.
“After seeing how happy everyone was in Atlanta about ticket access, I feel whatever the problem was has now been fixed,” said the singer in a statement. “I would like to put on one more show in Chicago so people that wanted tickets and could not get in the system, now have a chance to see the show and get their tickets at face value and not have to go through the scalper/broker systems if they don’t want to.”
Brooks has also beaten his personal record for tickets sold in Atlanta, where he will stage seven shows consecutively. The only artist to ever sell that many consecutive shows at the Philips Arena, Garth has already bested the record he previously set at Atlanta’s Omni from March 13th through 17th, 1996, with 81,902 paid tickets. He also broke the previous record, which was held by Elvis Presley, with four shows. That, of course, may not be the only Presley record Brooks will break once his music becomes available digitally. It is predicted that Brooks will surpass the King to become the best-selling artist in terms of solo album sales once his music hits the digital market.
While his comeback is smoking hot, Brooks also took a moment to accept the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge from Entertainment Tonight‘s Nancy O’Dell, who lost her mother to the disease.
“It’s an honor to accept your ALS Ice Bucket Challenge,” he said. “It is very much a wonderful honor of mine to accept it in your beautiful mother Betty’s name.”
After getting green and orange Gatorade poured over his head, Garth issued the challenge to the Pittsburgh Steelers, Pittsburgh Pirates and Pittsburgh Penguins.