Garth Brooks says he’ll put on a second show at Mid-State Fair

Garth Brooks is adding a second performance at the California Mid-State Fair after his first show sold out in less than 30 seconds Friday morning.

Just four hours after Brooks’ July 27 concert became the fastest-selling show in fair history, the country music megastar announced that he will put on another concert for fairgoers.

“For those people who didn’t get tickets, we’ll figure out a way to fix that and we’ll put on a second show there some way,” Brooks said in a video posted at about 2 p.m. on his Twitter page.

Concertgoers and resellers snapped up all 14,875 tickets for Brooks’ concert with wife Trisha Yearwood less than a minute after they went on sale at 10 a.m. Friday, according to Tom Keffury, who handles sponsorships and publicity for the fair.

Only two previous fair acts have achieved a feat even remotely close to that. Country star Blake Shelton sold out his 2016 show in a matter of hours, and rock band Aerosmith sold out its 2007 concert in a day.

In the video, Brooks said he was “very flattered, very humbled” by the strong ticket sales.

“It’s great news, but it’s not good news for the fair,” the two-time Grammy Award winner said. “Now the fair is trying to deal with people who are on the outside trying to get in. Anybody who does that for us, we owe them another show. We gotta figure that out.”

Keffury confirmed Friday afternoon that a second, ticketed show is possible but added that he doesn’t have details yet on a date or time. He called the situation “totally unprecedented” and “totally unbelievable.”

But Brooks is accustomed to such fan frenzy. Now on the seventh leg of his Garth Brooks World Tour with Trisha Yearwood, which the pair began in 2014, he frequently adds performances in response to high demand.

Brooks, whose hits include “Friends in Low Places” and “Unanswered Prayers,” is making his debut at the Paso Robles Event Center. Yearwood, a three-time Grammy winner best known for the song “How Do I Live,” has performed at the fair three times — headlining in 1995 and 1997 and opening for Don Henley in 2002.

After the quick sellout Friday morning, tickets for Brooks and Yearwood’s July 27 concert were being offered on secondary sites for as much as $3,495 apiece. (They originally sold for $73.98 each, plus a $6 service charge.)

According to Keffury, two other fair acts are experiencing particularly strong ticket sales so far: Zac Brown Band, performing July 20, and Keith Urban, playing July 26. Both shows have sold more than two-thirds of available tickets, he said.

“I don’t believe either will quite get to a sellout, but both will be super-full shows,” Keffury said.

The California Mid-State Fair runs July 19-30 at the Paso Robles Event Center. For more information, call 1-800-909-FAIR (3247) or visit www.midstatefair.com.

This story was originally published June 23, 2017 at 2:44 PM with the headline "Garth Brooks says he’ll put on a second show at Mid-State Fair."