Watch Garth Brooks Fight Ticket-Buying Bots by Giving Their Seats Away for Free

Garth Brooks gave eight fans free seats during his Blame It All On My Roots tour after noticing that tickets bought by resellers had gone unused. He said he had watched fans struggle against ticket-buying bots and wanted real people in the seats, turning unsold tickets into a way to push back against resale speculation.

Brooks had capped ticket prices at $155.50, but bots still appeared to have captured tickets in the Ticketmaster sale. The article cites a Queue-it study of one high-profile sale that received 3.3 million requests, of which about 138,000 came from people, meaning roughly 96% were attributed to bots. Brooks was able to give away seats because he controlled the tickets.