Tuesday, September 12, 2006

AEG In Hot Water Over Freeze Out

(Via Encore) A recent lawsuit filed by The Forum Center in Inglewood California contends that the company entered into a contract with Anschutz Corp.(parent company of AEG) to handle its booking, but instead of providing sufficient bookings AEG used their privileged position to drive traffic away from Forum and towards the (Anschutz-owned) Staples Center.

In 2000, the agreement was signed by the two parties and a few years later a yearly guarantee of $500,000 was tacked on. The yearly gurantee was apparently still not enough to nudge Anschutz to increase bookings at the 18,000 space venue.

"In other words, AEG has paid $500,000 per year to put the Forum out of business as an entertainment venue," the lawsuit claims.

While it is possible that there might be some dirty dealings here, I am inclined to believe that the true culprit is the over-sized overstuffed Forum itself. As we've discussed here numerous times before, the ticket buying public is not interested in the supersized arena shows of yesteryore (sic). As the less popular (or more sorely neglected, let the judge decide) of the two venues, they are obviously going to feeling the pinch a lot more. The case might just boil down to zeitgeist.

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