The German leg of Al Gore's Live Earth venture lost 950,000 euros, or about £640,000. Promoters of the German global warming awareness raising event, a state owned company called Hamburg Marketing GmbH, admitted yesterday that costs had significantly exceeded income.
The big problem was that of the 45,000 tickets made available, only 29,000 were sold, while 2500 went to sponsors and the rest were unused. In all, tickets generated 1.06 million euros, while merchandising and sponsorship took revenues up to 1.25 million euros. But costs were 1.45 million euros, in addition to a 750,000 euro fee that was paid to the central Live Earth organisation to help fund the global marketing of the initiative.
Hamburg Marketing GmbH MD Thorsten Kausch told reporters yesterday: "So we ended up with a minus of about 200,000 euros. Additionally, we had to pay in advance an amount of 750,000 euros to the Live Earth organization".
Because the promoters were state owned the deficit will be covered by the city of Hamburg.
Elsewhere in Live Earth news, the BBC has issued a formal explanation and apology to Metallica fans everywhere after they cut away from the band's set at Live Earth London just as they were about to perform classic track 'Enter Sandman' in order to air some Crowded House pre-record. As previously reported, that decision garnered more complaints than the occasional utterances of 'fuck' elsewhere in the awareness building extravaganza.
In a written statement, in which the Beeb seemingly misspelled the band's name, the Corporation has said: "We received complaints from some viewers that the Metalica [sic] set was not shown in full. This was a global event and we were keen to reflect the other concerts as well as the one in UK. We took editorial decisions in advance and on the day, about the times and places we would do that. Not all the tracks by every performer could be featured but we did transmit a full trail promoting our interactive coverage where digital viewers wanting to see the performances in full, could press the red button at any time. The concerts were very fluid in London and around the world and there was certainly no prejudice about heavy metal music or any other music; just a determination to do the best for the entire audience watching on BBC2 and BBC1 during the day. This is inevitably a fine balance and we cannot please everyone all of the time. However, we of course apologise if any particular viewers were disappointed".