Gardai were called to a Limerick shop selling Garth Brooks concert tickets today after furious fans failed to secure tickets for his Croke Park gigs in July.

About 200 dedicated fans braved freezing temperatures for two nights camping outside Gleeson’s Sports Scene on Upper William Street, but the majority were left “distraught” after the shop sold out its tickets.

Steve Gleeson, owner, said their system for accessing Ticketmaster’s online ticket agent system was “slow” which left them unable to access as many tickets as they wanted.

After the shop had sold tickets to 49 people they informed remaining fans no more would be sold.

Gardai were called as disppointed fans gathered outside the shop this morning.

Kate Ronan, from Mill Road, Corbally, Limerick, was number 50 in the queue.

The 32-year-old said she had slept outside the shop for more than 48 hours in freezing conditions.

“I’m absolutely devastated. I was next in line. It’s a disgrace. The shop didn’t open the doors until a quarter to ten and the tickets went on sale at 9am online,” she said.

“They were only letting in two people at a time and it was very slow. When you went in you were waiting for the shop to print the tickets.”

She added: “The shop rang the gardai­ because they knew there would be murder. The gardai­ came and told fans to go away and that the tickets were all gone. There was people screaming and shouting.

“ Two detectives arrived and they were in the store for about ten minutes. The gardai­ said they would bring Paddy Wagons and arrest us if we didn’t leave. I left because I had to go to work. I’m dumfounded.”

No arrests were made.

Mr Gleeson said: “I’m not feeling great, to be honest with you.”

“The whole system was slow. It was slow accessing the tickets. It was not up to its normal speed.”

“Normally we get codes for seating (tickets) and we get codes for standing (tickets). This time we only got a code for per day. So we had to manually go in per day and we could only print off six tickets at a time,” he explained.

Mr Gleeson said all Ticketmaster agents could only start accessing an online pool of tickets from 9am. He said the system was slow, resulting in a delay in getting tickets to those waiting outside the store.

“We were pulling out of the same pool as all the other agents online. We sold roughly 250 tickets. Nearly everyone bought six tickets at a go. One person bought one ticket.”

He apologised to the fans who had waited for two days outside the shop.

“We’re very sorry and very sympathetic. We had four people working on the desk. We printed six tickets at a go - it was the fastest way. We never know (how many tickets we will get) until the day (of the sale). If you’ve blips with broadband or your machine, it effects the result,” Mr Gleeson said.

“Our system appeared to be slow and I believe there may have been a broadband problem in Limerick (at the same time). Nothing can be done about it now. The shop doors opened at 9.25am. We were tryign to print in advance but on days like today for big concerts we just print (from the) “Best Available” (section).”

Mr Gleeson said there was no violence, from the disappointed fans.

“We had the gardai­ notified anyway, because of the large crowd factor and because of the large amount of cash coming over the counter. We ran out of tickets and people got annoyed. They became disgruntled but there was no violence.”

“We had been in contact with a community garda anyway. She was there and then a few more gardai­ came along to talk to the crowds,” Mr Gleeson added.

He said Ticketmaster had been in contact with the shop and were “investigating why it was so slow”.

The shop has been a Ticketmaster agent since last June.

“By and large it has worked very smoothly but these ticket days for big concerts do interfere with the (day to day) running of the shop with the crowds outside. Normally our customers walk in and don’t have to queue. It’s not ideal,” Mr Gleeson said.