Ticket sales for Garth Brooks' third Kansas City concert were abruptly shut down Friday after organizers said bots overran the on-sale within moments of it opening. The Saturday, Nov. 7 matinee at T-Mobile Center had only just been added to the schedule days earlier due to overwhelming demand, and the planned 10 a.m. Central time launch through AXS turned chaotic almost immediately.
Organizers halted sales for the show, attributing the shutdown to what they called excessive bot activity, according to KMBC. Brooks himself did not mince words about the situation, saying the bot problem had grown progressively worse throughout the tour and that automated programs managed to crash Friday's sale entirely. T-Mobile Center officials said Brooks and the promoters behind the tour are now evaluating next steps and the future of the show.
Brooks Apologizes, Vows Personal Investigation
Brooks apologized directly to fans caught in the crossfire. “My concern is for the people who managed to buy tickets today for the third show in Kansas City before the bots crashed the on sale,” he said, according to the same KMBC report. He added a personal pledge to dig into what went wrong: “I will personally look into what can be done. You have my word that all that can be done will be done.”
The show in question was only announced earlier in the week, added because of high demand on Brooks' ongoing Blame It All On My Roots Tour. Per garthbrooks.com, Kansas City and Seattle were originally slated for two shows apiece before organizers expanded each city to a trio of dates. All tickets for the third Kansas City show were priced at $155 before taxes, broken down as a $140 base ticket, a $5 facility fee, and a $10 service charge, with every seat in the house carrying that same flat price.
Not the First Tour Stop Hit by Bots
This isn't the first time bots have derailed a Brooks on-sale this tour. In September, Brooks shut down ticket sales for an upcoming Delta Center show in Salt Lake City just 30 minutes after they opened, also citing bot interference, as reported by the Salt Lake Tribune. In that case, Brooks ultimately added a fourth Utah date for Oct. 8, and tickets already purchased during the disrupted sale for the Oct. 11 show were honored. Brooks, the Delta Center, and SeatGeek said at the time they were working to ensure tickets wound up in the hands of real fans.
The bot problem plaguing Brooks' tour reflects a broader industry headache. Automated buying programs can snap up seats within seconds of a sale opening and resell them at inflated prices, squeezing out genuine fans, according to a report from CNBC. That same report cited a December 2025 survey by the Consumers' Association of Singapore in which nearly 65% of respondents said scalping kept genuine fans from attending events they wanted to see. Ticketmaster has said it blocks automated software, shuts down fake accounts, and cancels orders that violate its policies, per the CNBC report.
What the Law Says About Ticket Bots
Federal law has addressed bot-driven ticket buying for a decade. The BOTS Act, enacted in 2016, gives the Federal Trade Commission authority to pursue law-enforcement action against individuals and companies that use bots or other means to get around limits on online ticket purchases, according to the Federal Trade Commission. The agency has also said the law applies specifically to publicly accessible events at venues with seating or attendance capacity greater than 200 people.
Kansas City is no stranger to sold-out Brooks shows. He has sold out T-Mobile Center 16 times since helping open the building in 2007, including nine shows that year and seven more in 2017, according to the venue's own event listing. With the third show now added, his total climbs to 19 shows in 19 years at the arena, per garthbrooks.com. Whether this particular date goes forward as planned remains an open question that organizers say they're still sorting through.
