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Legal battle over US festival site could pitch SFX against AEG
By Chris Cooke | Published on Wednesday 12 February 2014
A brewing legal squabble in the US could pitch acquisitive EDM firm SFX against live industry major AEG Live, and could impact on the 2014 edition of American music festival Electric Forest, which has already sold 21,000 tickets.
According to EDM website Dancing Astronaut, the owners of the venue in Michigan where Electric Forest is staged, Progressive Resorts, have told the event’s promoters Madison House Presents that they can no longer use the property, even though said promoter seemingly had a 20 year lease to host a festival there.
It’s reported that Progressive Resorts recently ran into financial problems and has restructured its finances as a result. Presumably it’s because of that restructuring that the firm is now allegedly declaring its agreement with Madison House Presents void, even though a $60,000 deposit was reportedly paid last October for this June’s festival.
Either way, the matter is now with the Michigan courts. But it gets more interesting because Dancing Astronaut also reports that, according to legal papers it has seen, SFX has taken an interest in the Electric Forest site through a deal with Progressive Resorts, presumably spying it as a good location for its growing festivals business to stage future events.
But earlier this month Madison House Presents was acquired by AEG Live. And MHP’s partner in Electric Forest is Live Nation ally Insomniac Events. So is SFX exploiting its new interest in this festival site to get one over its rivals AEG and Live Nation, both of which have also been expanding their operations in the dance music festival domain?
Well, Dancing Astronaut quotes Jennifer Forkish, VP Communications at Insomianc, as follows: “We have worked with Madison House over the last three years to build this festival into an experience that the fans would love. This sounds like a case of sour grapes – Madison House chose AEG as their partner over SFX, and now SFX is seeking to punish us, Madison House and most importantly the loyal fans who have already purchased their tickets. The 2014 show is still going on as planned and tickets are still on sale and we are extremely confident that the court will decide to allow the festival to move forward as planned”.
