Garth Brooks has confirmed two concert dates for Croke Park in Dublin on September 10th and 11th, 2022.

Permission had originally been granted for outdoor concerts on those two plus one further date on September 9th. This was subsequently amended earlier this month to allow for two more on September 16th and 17th.

These will be in addition to the two concert dates announced by Ed Sheeran for the stadium on April 23rd and 24th. He will also play Pairc Uí Caoimh the following week.

Impact

Those concerts will be the first to be staged at the venue since Westlife played two sold-out nights in 2019. None were scheduled for 2020 so the Covid lockdowns had less of an impact on budgets than might have been the case but the return of live gigs in 2022 will be a significant financial boost for the GAA.

Published figures from 2018 revealed that the gross revenue from U2’s concert at the venue came to €8.4 million and while there is no breakdown of how much of that would have gone to the venue, the total revenue from stadium hire that year came to €4.48 million.

If the four confirmed concerts are added to, as can often be the case with concert dates that prove popular, it will generate record revenue for the stadium at a time when the Association is rebuilding its financial strength.

No further details of the Garth Brooks Stadium Tour have been released and the only confirmation at the time of writing comes from a single social media announcement from promoters Aiken Promotions at 8 AM this morning.

Confirmation

That said that Croke Park will be the only European Venue the artist will play in 2022. No confirmation of other dates has yet been made on any official Garth Brooks channels.

When he was scheduled to play here in 2014 he sold out almost 400,000 tickets over five nights. The concerts were subsequently cancelled when permission was only granted for three. The gap was filled by One Direction who played two nights that year.

The American Country star remains as popular as ever. A concert in Nebraska in August of this year sold out 86,000 seats in just over an hour.

If these are to be the only stops in Europe next year you would imagine demand will be at similar levels.

The tickets for those first two concert dates go on sale on Thursday, November 25th at 8 AM.

 

The Sport for Business Perspective:

The revenue which Irish sporting venues draw from the hire of the stadium for concerts as well as for conferences and exhibitions is substantial and important. In 2018, when the Stadium hire revenue line was 4.48 million, that was 15 % of the value of the entire Championship ticket sales for matches. If there are to be seven dates in 2022, that figure will be substantially higher and will be additional revenue as opposed to substitutional. With all GAA revenues being retained within the sport that is a winning result like few others could be.

 

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