Las Vegas Weekly

October 24, 2009 · 11:01 AM

Garth Brooks tickets are sold out for first set of concerts

By Robin Leach

Garth Brooks.

Photo: Scott Harrison/Retna/www.harrisonphotos.com

As expected, demand for Garth Brooks tickets at the Wynn was unprecedented. More than 40,000 frantic ticket buyers were online at any one time this morning.

Starting at 7 a.m., there were more than 2 million page views to the Garth Brooks ticket area on the Wynn Web site. I was told that traffic simply swamped operators.

“Overwhelmed” was the description from Wynn. Capacity and transaction processing had been increased, and it still wasn’t enough to meet the demand.

The Wynn has been trying to restore systems and optimize fully to accommodate the ticket requests. Actual tickets were still for sale as of 10 a.m. Call (702) 770-1000, go in person to the Wynn box office or log on to WynnLasVegas.com.

If you’re sticking with the phone or online, the word is to “keep trying to get through.”

Updated at 1:25 p.m.:

It took less than five hours to sell out the first 20 Garth Brooks concerts. The lines by phone, online and in person began at 8 a.m., and by 1 p.m., it was a full sellout.

The Wynn has already declared an all-out legal war against ticket brokers who say they have tickets. This is a developing story as the Wynn said it’s legal counsel is communicating with suspected and known scalpers and private, unauthorized sellers, stating that there are no licensed, authorized ticket brokers for the engagement. Furthermore, they warn that anybody paying more than the $143 face price on a ticket to a reseller does so knowing that the ticket will be canceled.

This first series of sold-out concerts is Dec. 11-13, Jan. 1-3, Jan. 22-24, Feb. 12-14 and Feb 26-28. Future concert dates will be announced soon. The Wynn’s Web site had 5.4 million hits about tickets, and resort phone lines reached maximum capacity with 141,934 calls before going to a busy signal!

Robin Leach has been a journalist for more than 50 years and has spent the past decade giving readers the inside scoop on Las Vegas, the world’s premier platinum playground.

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