COVID causes Garth Brooks to cancel tour dates just 11 days after Kansas City concert

Country star Garth Brooks is canceling his remaining stadium tour dates in five cities due to rising COVID-19 cases.

The move came just 11 days after he performed in Kansas City.

More than 74,500 tickets were sold for the Aug. 7 show, a record for an Arrowhead Stadium concert, despite the danger of spreading the delta variant of COVID-19 across the Kansas City region.

In the week leading up to the show, the Kansas City area added 5,000 more cases, 1,000 more than the previous week. Kansas residents who attended and were not fully vaccinated were asked to quarantine for seven to 10 days after the concert. However, University of Kansas Health Systems Chief Medical Officer Steve Stites said last week that the transmissibility of the delta variant has mostly been traced to indoor spaces.

Brooks had said weeks ago that he would be reassessing the tour in light of the surge in cases. Tickets will be refunded for shows scheduled in Cincinnati; Charlotte, North Carolina; Baltimore; Foxborough, Massachusetts, and Nashville, Tennessee. He had also planned to play in Seattle but declined to put tickets on sale.

“In July, I sincerely thought the pandemic was falling behind us,” Brooks said in a statement on Wednesday. “Now, watching this new wave, I realize we are still in the fight and I must do my part.”

Brooks, one of the biggest selling entertainers in music, restarted touring in July and regularly performs in front of 60,000-70,000 people per stadium. Many of his shows sell out well in advance.

Brooks said he is hopeful that he can resume touring before the end of the year and reschedule those tour dates.

This story was originally published August 18, 2021 at 4:36 PM with the headline "COVID causes Garth Brooks to cancel tour dates just 11 days after Kansas City concert."