Super-fans camp out for Brooks tickets

The tickets for Brooks’ Croke Park show go on sale today (Thursday) at 9am, which means some Lurgan fanatics will have spent over 60 hours on the street in anticipation.

The queue started at 4.50pm on Monday evening and by Tuesday morning the crowd was into double figures and closing in on the 20 mark.

At the head of the queue are Dwayne Toland and Graeme Lennon. Dwayne (28) said: “I got here at 10 to five last night (Monday).

“I brought a tent with me but my mate bought one especially.”

Once Dwayne posted up on Facebook that he’d pitched a tent outside Skelton Travel other Brooks fans scrambled to join him.

Sonya Rice and her mother Colette joined them in the queue at 5.30pm.

Sonya was ‘in her youth’ when she saw Garth Brooks perform in the King’s Hall 17 years ago.

Another of the fans in the queue saw Brooks play twice in Dublin then saw him again in Belfast the following year.

“This better be worth it,” she said, snuggling into her sleeping bag for warmth.

The music fans who braved the elements explained that once a fan had joined the queue they were free to nip home for a shower or to get a bite to eat without anyone taking their place.

It was apparent to the ‘MAIL’ team visiting the ‘sit out’ that anyone who’d planted a chair in High Street Arcade was there for the long haul.

They’ve been allowed to stay inside the shuttered arcade overnight and some of the businesses have even been kind enough to leave a light on for them.

Some of those queuing for tickets had met before, having queued in the same spot for One Direction tickets last year.

Steven Jordan described those gathered as “one big happy family”.

He said the craic was great late into the night and it was clear some of those queuing were suffering the effects of a broken night’s sleep.

The fans gathered in anticipation in Lurgan ranged from a women in her seventies to a girl of just 15.

While the ‘MAIL’ was chatting to some of the fans Paul Hill arrived in the arcade with a piece of memorabilia to whet their appetites. He showed them a treasured photo of himself with Brooks after his last Dublin concert.

When asked if he was going to join the queue for tickets, he said: “Been there, done that.”

Gerard Skelton, who has been running a ticket and travel business in the town for 30 years, said it was the biggest queue he’d seen so early before tickets go on sale.

He said he was confident everyone in the queue would get a ticket given that Ticketmaster outlets like himself will have a certain allocation of tickets rather than joining the internet stampede.