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 A council decision last week to uphold objections raised by
local residents against the holding of five successive shows at
the 82,000-seat Croke Park stadium has dominated the airwaves,
newspaper front pages and been raised in parliament.
Brooks, who retired from recording new music and touring in
2001, chose Dublin for his five-night "Comeback Special Event",
selling a record 400,000 tickets, equivalent to almost 10
percent of the population, before a wider tour later in 2014.
But after local media quoted the singer as saying he would play
five shows or none at all, the concert's organizer, Aiken
Promotions, said on Tuesday that no concerts would take place.
"Aiken Promotions have exhausted all avenues regarding the
staging of this event," the promoters said in a brief statement,
without giving any details as to why all five shows had been
canceled.
Brooks, who has sold more than 125 million albums and is best
known for hits such as "The Thunder Rolls" and "Friends in Low
Places", has played the occasional one-city show and benefit
concert during his retirement but has never toured.
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No act, including Ireland's U2, had ever played five shows in a row
at the Croke Park Gaelic sports stadium, the country's largest
venue. The concert promoters had said some 70,000 of the 400,000
tickets sold were bought by people living abroad.
Business groups from restaurants to publicans and hoteliers had
warned that the economy would lose up to 50 million euros if the
concerts did not proceed.
"The cancellation of all five concerts in July will tarnish the
image of Ireland as a tourist destination to overseas visitors,"
Adrian Cummins, chief executive of the Restaurants Association of
Ireland said in a statement.
(Reporting by Padraic Halpin; Editing by Larry King)
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