Garth Brooks [ tickets ] will come out of retirement to perform 16 weekends a year in Las Vegas as part of a long-term deal freshly inked with billionaire resort tycoon Steve Wynn, the two announced at a press conference today.

Sitting on the same Encore Stage at the Wynn Las Vegas Resort where Brooks will soon be once again performing before paying crowds, Brooks and Wynn discussed the terms of the arrangement in a casual briefing before an assembled group of reporters and fans, many of whom had been flown in from Nashville on a chartered jet. Specifics of the deal are still forthcoming, but Brooks will perform four shows per weekend, with the weekends spaced three to four weeks apart over the next year, leaving him free to "drive my girls to school," the country star said.

"[Wynn has] taken care of my children, he's taken care of my wife," Brooks said. "My life is not going to change, except that I'm going to get to play live music."

According to Wynn, the engagement will kick off the weekend of Dec. 11, with four additional weekends currently slotted through late February; details are included below. "Always one show on Friday, two on Saturday, one on Sunday, and then Garth can be home Monday morning," Wynn said. Brooks added that Wynn will provide the performer with a private jet so that he can fly quickly between Las Vegas and his home in Oklahoma.

All tickets at the Wynn Resort's Encore Theater--which has stood empty since the death of entertainer Danny Gans in May--will be priced at $125 for the shows, a compromise Brooks worked out with Wynn after the tycoon personally assured him he would guard the seats against scalpers, the pair said. The first batch of tickets will go on sale Oct. 24 at 8 a.m. PT, according to the Wynn Las Vegas website.

Neither Brooks nor Wynn would reveal the financial terms of the deal. "If I were to tell you that, I would probably be fired by my stockholders," Wynn quipped during the press conference's question-and-answer period. "We're not going to reveal that information, so sit down."

"I am a fortunate guy who has gotten to make his living playing music for people, and the people have always taken care of me," Brooks added.

According to reports, Brooks began the day with a press conference in Nashville, with several reporters then joining him on a private, chartered flight to Las Vegas.

"I know this is a young industry, so I'm not sure I'll be welcomed back but, if the fans want me, I still want to pursue my music," Brooks told reporters at the Nashville press conference.

"We're going to take the retirement roof off over our head, and I already feel taller," he added.

Brooks announced his official retirement in 2000 after years of publicly flirting with possibility of removing himself from the spotlight. In his retirement press conference, the performer, 39 years old at the time, cited his desire to spend more time with family.

"I can only be as honest as I can be," he said at the time. "I don't know how else to say it. I am here to announce my retirement. It is a thing that I feel good about. I feel that what I am trading it for is more important at this point in my life--which I never thought that I would find anything that would be that important--your relationship to your children is to anybody who is a parent out there. So, today we start a new life."

In the years that followed, Brooks has performed for several charity causes, including at a 2005 telethon for Hurricane Katrina relief, where he sang Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Who'll Stop the Rain" with wife and fellow country star Trisha Yearwood. In 2007, he played nine sold-out shows at Kansas City, MO's Sprint Center Arena--an engagement that originally was announced as a single-show thank-you to Walmart employees, but later expanded to multiple public shows.

Brooks has sold more albums in the US--upwards of 128 million--than any solo artist in history, according to the Recording Industry Association of America.

He also was one of the best concert draws in the business during the 1990s. During his 1996-98 tour, Brooks played 350 shows in 100 cities, selling more than 5.3 million tickets, according to his publicist at the time.