Garth Brooks says he was forced to cancel an upcoming concert due to automated bots crashing the ticket sale.
The 64-year-old country singer announced last week that he was adding a third show in Kansas City — a “special” November 7 matinee performance at the T-Mobile Center — to his Blame It All On My Roots Tour due to anticipated demand.
However, Brooks announced Monday night that the extra show had been scrapped after “one of the most frustrating moments” of the tour occurred Friday when tickets went on sale.
“Because of social media posts and our history with Kansas City, I felt we left people unable to get tickets on the original on-sale,” Brooks explained in a post on his website. “I was the one who suggested we put a lower bowl Saturday matinee up for sale.”
He said the ticket sale for the matinee went downhill when bots flooded the market through ticketing company AXS and the T-Mobile Center, leading to more than 90,000 parties waiting — but most of the massive queue turned out to be bots, which held tickets throughout the venue’s floor and lower bowl and blocked real people from buying those tickets.
The issue worsened until T-Mobile Center and AXS shut down the sale, and the matinee show was canceled, according to the statement on Brooks’s website. The Independent has reached out to AXS for further comment.
Brooks apologized to fans for the complications in a Facebook post shared Friday, saying: “The bot situation is out of hand.”
“It's been progressively getting worse on this tour,” he said. “With that said, my concern is for the people who managed to buy tickets today for the third show in Kansas City before the bots crashed the on sale. I will personally look into what can be done.”
He added: “You have my word that all that can be done will be done. You have my deepest apologies for the results and my most sincere appreciation for your efforts today. love, g.”
People who successfully bought tickets to the third show will be automatically refunded.
Although the Saturday matinee was canceled, Brooks is still scheduled to play in Kansas City on the evenings of November 6 and 7.
Days later, Brooks will be playing four shows in Seattle. While Seattle’s ticket sale also occurred Friday, it went more smoothly than Kansas City, with fans selling out three dates and leading the singer to add a new opening night.
Brooks said of Friday: “It was a day of highs and lows, all for the same reason. It's all about taking care of those people who love the music.”
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