More Help for Flood Relief

Wow!

Garth Brooks' Nashville Benefit: 9 Sold-out Shows, $3.5 Million for Flood Relief

Garth Brooks’ Dec. 17 benefit concert in Nashville for victims of flooding across middle Tennessee has turned into a deluge of its own.

When tickets went on sale Saturday morning, demand was such that the country superstar, who hasn’t performed in Nashville for 12 years, added shows until he had amassed a string of nine over six days. Those concerts are expected to generate $3.5 million for ongoing flood relief efforts.

"It's great to be part of the healing," Brooks said Saturday. The feat almost doubles the previous record in Tennessee for ticket sales by a single performer, set by Michael Jackson, who had sold 72,000 tickets for a stadium show in Knoxville.

Brooks will play Dec. 16, 17, 19, 20, 21 and 22 at Nashville's Bridgestone Arena. Tickets were priced at $25, his standard maximum ticket price over the years, outside of his current engagement doing solo acoustic shows at Steve Wynn's Encore Theatre in Las Vegas. Brooks said 100% of the ticket revenue will be donated to the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee to help those who are still rebuilding after the flooding that hit the area in May.

When the concert benefit was announced late last month, Brooks told The Times that he didn't anticipate doing an extended series of shows, as he had done in 2008 to raise money for victims of Southern California wildfires the previous fall. But he said if the demand was there, he would add performances to generate more money.

He said the decision to hold the shows shortly before Christmas reflected his belief that "around Christmas time is when people seem to need the most help, and when people feel the most giving, so the timing just seemed to make sense."

-- Randy Lewis