In the quickly expanding department of Garth Brooks is Still Kinda a Big Deal, Minneapolis has set the new record for most tickets sold in one city on a Brooks tour.
The Hat Man's hard-working public-relations team sent out a press release this morning heralding the fact that next month's 11-concert Target Center run has already "shattered" the old record, which was 180,000 tickets sold for another 11-gig stand at Chicago's Allstate Arena in September.
More than 188,000 seats have been sold in Minneapolis -- and the concerts aren't entirely sold out yet. The number got a final boost when the most recently announced show (Sunday, Nov. 9), went on sale Friday. More than 17,000 seats are being sold to each concert. Sales have probably been helped greatly by the fact that the Wal-Mart-branded country singer insists on keeping a reasonable ticket price, which in this case is about $70 per ticket after fees.
Garth's personal record is also obviously a record for the Twin Cities. The bar for most tickets sold by a performer on one tour here was previously set by – you guessed it – Brooks in 1998, when he sold 162,000 tickets for nine Target Center shows.
Only the fifth stop on his back-from-retirement tour, Minneapolis likely won't hold the Brooks tour record for long – probably no longer than it takes for him to announce shows in Dallas, Los Angeles, New York or his native Oklahoma.
