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Illinois DA to investigate Lollapalooza radius clauses
By CMU Editorial | Published on Friday 25 June 2010
Festival promoters around the world are known for pressuring artists to steer clear of their direct competitors, or playing in a locality near the festival for a set time period before and after the event, when they are negotiating bookings. Said demands are often contractual with bigger bands and events. Which makes this investigation in the US especially interesting.
According to a Chicago-based blogger called Jim Derogatis, US promoters C3 Presents are being investigated by the Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan with regards limitations put on artists when they are booked to play the Lollapalooza festival in Chicago, with regards said artists playing other gigs and festivals; so called ‘radius clauses’. It’s thought Madigan thinks those clauses could breach American competition rules.
Derogatis claims that a VP of the William Morris Endeavor Entertainment booking agency has been subpoenaed to provide information to the investigation, while Billboard says C3 themselves have also received a subpoena. Derogatis adds that promoters in the Chicago area have long complained about the radius clauses C3 put into Lollapalooza artist contracts, though Billboard says that many artists break those clauses anyway and that the festival promoter has never been known to enforce them.
Either way, given such clauses are pretty common across the industry it will be interesting to see what the conclusions of Madigan’s investigation are. Although her rulings will only affect the state of Illinois, any moves there to ban such limitation clauses in artist contracts could lead to pressure being put on promoters elsewhere.
