Promoter: ‘There’s Still a Bit of Hope’ for Garth Brooks Comeback Shows in Ireland

It looks like Garth Brooks' comeback shows might go on after all.

Just days after the Dublin City Council announced its decision to deny permits for two of the planned shows, a compromise may be within reach.

Brooks was scheduled to perform five sold-out shows from July 25-29 at Croke Park in Dublin to kick off his worldwide comeback tour, but the Dublin City Council refused to license the last two nights in a surprising decision last week.

That was in response to pressure from the Croke Park Residents Association, which had opposed the shows, citing an agreement with Croke Park in which no more than three concerts could take place at the venue in a year. But faced with the prospect of losing massive amounts of potential revenue for the city, the council is scheduled to meet Monday night (June 7) to try to work out a compromise.

According to the Irish Times, the proposed compromise hinges on getting Brooks to agree to go ahead with the three concerts that have been approved, and give the city time to determine whether additional dates might be possible at a later time.

Dublin's mayor and the chief executive of the labour relations commission were among those working toward a solution over the weekend. A group of residents near Croke Park held a rally on Sunday (June 6) to call for all five shows to be approved, citing the beneficial impact to the local economy, while another group have threatened to seek a High Court injunction to prevent the three shows that have been approved from going forward.

Aiken tells the Irish Times he's not giving up just yet.

“There’s still a bit of hope. There’s still work going on behind the scenes, both [by] ourselves and Croke Park, and I think a final decision will have to be made Monday or Tuesday," he states.

“We’re just going to keep working away as much as we can, meeting as many people as we can and doing whatever we can to try and get some light at the end of this."

Last week Brooks teased a big announcement that was supposed to go up on his website Monday morning. Instead of announcing the dates and cities for his worldwide comeback tour as expected, the singer announced a press conference for Thursday (July 10). There has been much speculation online that the announcement was pushed to Thursday to give Brooks and his advisers time to resolve the problems with the Dublin shows before announcing the rest of the tour.