Kingston Trio Promoter Sues Ticketmaster & More for Corruption, Discrimination Against Elderly Fans

The Greek Theatre, 1 of Los Angeles’ astir iconic outdoor performance venues, has been named successful a sweeping caller suit by Trident Concert Productions, an autarkic performance promoter moving with people revival enactment The Kingston Trio. The lawsuit, filed by L.A. litigator Konrad Trope, accuses the building’s absorption company, ASM Global, on with Ticketmaster, Live Nation and the City of Los Angeles of orchestrating a corrupt strategy that shuts retired autarkic promoters and leaves fans — peculiarly seniors — without entree to concerts astatine the venue.

At the bosom of the ailment is simply a assertion that metropolis officials and firm partners person softly undermined the Greek Theatre’s 2018 absorption agreement, which mandated the venue beryllium tally arsenic an “open building” escaped from exclusive ticketing and promotion deals. Instead, Trident alleges that the city, successful concern with Ticketmaster and Live Nation, allowed a de facto monopoly implicit the venue, forcing promoters into arrangements that stifled contention and constricted entree for fans.

One of the lawsuit’s sharpest accusations centers not connected pricing oregon antitrust, but connected the nonaccomplishment to decently grounds 2 Kingston Trio concerts astatine the Greek connected Aug. 17 and Aug. 18, 2024.

“Trident and the Trio’s intent was to nutrient a documentary performance movie and a high-quality unrecorded performance medium to travel the film,” Trope said. “This performance was contracted with and to beryllium distributed by BRI for worldwide organisation successful theatres, television, and streaming.”

Trident paid $50,000 to unafraid the filming and show dates for the concert, according to the lawsuit.

“During the archetypal show, connected the evening of August 17, 2024, the Trio’s full Saturday show, captious to the eventual occurrence of Sunday’s show, was not recorded. Not a azygous 2nd of show was saved to immoderate hard drives we provided damaging the imaginable for the documents,” Trope said. Two of the Greek’s employees allegedly ne'er “checked to marque definite that the indispensable hard drives required to grounds the Shows were really plugged in,” the suit reads.

Despite that alleged nonaccomplishment to decently grounds the archetypal concert, Trident claims it was presented with a $200,000 measure for filming and “delivering” the performance footage. It adds that a third-party contractor hired to tally the show’s AV subsequently blamed venue unit astatine the Greek for failing to instruct them to grounds the show, contempt being alert of Trident’s “intent to movie and grounds some nights for a full-length diagnostic documentary movie to beryllium released successful 2025, successful clip for the Academy Award screening season.”

“There wasn’t adjacent a backup protection track, the astir basal constituent of all, produced either for the video oregon sound,” the suit reads. “This was unprofessional to the maximum grade and reflective of the dismissive cognition that The Greek Theater displayed towards Trident and the Kingston Trio.“

The suit claims this alleged nonaccomplishment was not an isolated oversight, but portion of a broader signifier astatine the Greek Theatre, Trident says. By allowing concerts to proceed without due record-keeping, the institution claims, the venue’s absorption created conditions wherever extracurricular promoters were near successful the acheronian astir however their shows performed financially. This deficiency of transparency, the suit says, efficaciously shields Ticketmaster and Live Nation from scrutiny portion making it astir intolerable for independents to situation their dominance.

For a set similar The Kingston Trio, whose taste bequest stretches backmost much than six decades, the ailment suggests that the Greek’s mishandling of the performance was much than a logistical slip. It was, successful the words of Trident, “a breach of spot that denied artists and their audiences the integrity they deserve.”

The suit accuses Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and the Department of Recreation and Parks commissioners of turning a unsighted oculus to what it calls an “illegal fiscal arrangement” with Ticketmaster and Live Nation. These deals, Trident claims, not lone sideline autarkic promoters but besides discriminate against fans who cannot navigate Ticketmaster’s mobile-only ticketing platforms.

“Concert producers and unrecorded events astatine The Greek Theater that entreaty to elder citizens are discouraged oregon endure fiscal ruin if they are not contracted with Ticketmaster and Live Nation,” the filing alleges.

For Trident, the quality is astir much than marketplace share. The institution claims it made repeated attempts to...