Lord Mayor Christy Burke has been told by the city manager at Dublin City Council that there will be no reversal of the DCC's decision to refuse licenses for two of the five scheduled Garth Brooks concerts in Croke Park this summer.
This comes after last night's statement from Brooks in which he said that he would either perform all five concerts or none at all. Mr. Burke said that he "respects" the council's decision and acknowledged that their decision was final and that there is no appeals process in place, essentially forcing Garth Brooks' hand into potentially cancelling all five of the concerts.
A section of Croke Park residents said yesterday evening that they would petition to have the gigs go ahead as planned.
Two of five Garth Brooks shows, scheduled for 28th and 29th of July, were refused a license after about 160,000 tickets had been sold to punters prompting outcry from local residents and fans alike.
It has emerged this morning that at least three other venues offered to stage the concerts. Kildare's Punchestown Racecourse, Cork's Páirc Ui Chaoimh and Lissadell House in Sligo all volunteered their services but these ideas were shot down by the concerts promoter Peter Aiken, who maintained that Brooks had a very specific vision in place for the concerts and being in Croke Park was central to that.
As well as that, licensing arrangements would be difficult in the event of a venue change as the process takes an average of ten weeks to complete.
We suspect that there will be more news on this today and we'll bring it to you as soon as we have it...
(via Irish Times)
