Garth Brooks is preparing to embark on his highly anticipated Blame It All On My Roots Tour, starting next month. And now, he’s made his feelings about ticket scalping known.
As announced last week, the country music icon is returning to arena stages next month, performing at the Indianapolis-based Gainbridge Fieldhouse on Friday, 21 and Saturday, 22 August.
No other dates have been announced yet, but in a recent Instagram video, Brooks remarked that “Indianapolis is the perfect city to start the world tour.” There’s no pre-sale, only a general sale, which opens this Friday, 17 July, at 10 am ET via Ticketmaster.
All tickets are priced at $154 plus applicable taxes, and in an effort to showcase transparency, Brooks’ team revealed that it’s actually a $140 ticket price, a $4 facility fee, and a $10 service charge behind the overall price.
Following the news about the tour, Brooks has published a guide about how to purchase tickets to the forthcoming shows on his website, detailing the importance of the waiting room system, confirming which fans are real people and which are bots.
“Ticket scalping remains one of the biggest challenges in touring,” a notice on Brooks’ website reads.
It adds that ticket scalping has changed in recent years. Previously, the practice involved someone selling multiple tickets, some of which they would resell to make money. Now, “Bots flood ticketing systems, slowing the purchasing process for real people, frustrating fans, and pushing many to the secondary market, where ticket prices are exorbitantly higher than those set by the artist.”
Commenting on the practice, Brooks said, “I’ve never understood why scalping is legal. I don’t think I am making it too simple by saying if we just make scalping illegal, a bunch of the problems of today’s ticketing procedures would be gone.”
Musing on the thought of approaching lawmakers who may want to look into criminalising scalping, he added, “I’ve always wanted to go to the ‘powers that be’ and tell them I would be happy to do a tour without scalping if they want to see if we all miss it or not.”
Discussing the forthcoming tour in a press release, Brooks shared, “Going back into the arenas is about putting the stadium show in a box. The excitement gets multiplied by the intimacy. Every seat is a great seat. This is personal.”
The shows feature both end-stage and in-the-round seating. On his World Tour three decades ago, Brooks unveiled the Double Live album, the best-selling live album in the history of recorded music.
Now, thirty years later, Brooks returns with the drum pod and a “retro arena” tour. The Blame It On My Roots Tour is set to lay the foundation for Killer Live, a new approach to live albums that captures the singer’s history in real time.
Countrytown brings you Australia’s best country music news, interviews, charts and more every week! This post was authored by Countrytown and originally published on the Countrytown website. It has been re-published with permission.
