Although the world was supposed to know what concert promoter would be operating iconic Los Angeles theater The Greek in the near future, it seems we may need to wait until a more distant future as the appropriate committees consider the respective bids from Live Nation and Nederlander/AEG Live. The Recreation and Parks commission was originally scheduled to make a recommendation October 9 but mixed messages may require more pondering.
Last week the commission announced that it had scored the bid of Live Nation higher than that of its competitor. In other words, Live Nation had offered more money for the rights to operate the concert hall. Needless to say, this news was greeted with scorn from AEG according to Billboard.
"We think there's been some mis-scoring," said Alex Hodges, the CEO of Nederlander. He reckoned that his side's offer was 25 percent, or $17.5 million higher than Live Nation's. Considering that Live Nation forecasted $77.9 million in revenue share for the city plus $40 million in capital improvements to the location (both over 20 years), you can do the math.
Nederlander has been promoting shows at The Greek for nearly 40 years but its contract is up following October of 2015. Obviously it would like to keep the streak going but Live Nation has been on a buying streak in the last few years. Just earlier this week it was announced that the company had acquired C3, the promotion company behind festivals such as Lollapalooza and Austin City Limits.
One of Nederland/AEG's major allegations against Live Nation is that the community funds supplied by the latter will come from secondary market ticket sales, so ultimately paid for by the consumers. Live Nation owns Ticketmaster as well, probably the source of AEG's complaint.
Stay tuned.
