Justin Bieber in Concord? Not Likely

In a perfect world, Mayor Laura Hoffmeister would be able to call up Justin Bieber for a phone conversation that would go something like this:

Mayor Hoffmeister: “Hey Justin, we are interested in having you play the Pavilion this summer.”

Justin: "Sure, Mayor Hoffmeister—what are your open dates?"

Mayor Hoffmeister: "I’ll check. I just talked to Bono and he was going to give me a couple of dates for the U2 shows. Whatever he can’t make, you can have.”

But of course it doesn’t happen that way. The mayor isn’t moonlighting as a concert promoter and the booking of the is in the hands of Live Nation Entertainment, Inc., as it has been since 2000. And that organization will be the first to tell you that the entertainment industry — at least when it comes to big pavilion shows like the ones performed in Concord — are in a rocky period. And not like in rock and roll.

That is apparent in the lease the city recently negotiated with Live Nation, which was approved at Tuesday’s City council meeting. Rather than the $1.1 million plus $2 per ticket charge that city received under the last contract, the new two-year agreement offers Concord $500,000 plus $3 per ticket.

That’s about $850,000 per year, said assistant city manager Valerie Barone.

It’s a deep cut, but one that is happening at mid-level venues across the country.

“The entertainment industry is in a lot of turmoil,” said Matt Prieshoff, Live Nation chief operating officer for Northern California. “It’s hard to sell tickets for larger venues like Sleep Train, the Shoreline or Arco. But smaller venues like the Fillmore, with about 1,000 capacity, are going gangbusters.”

"People are being cautious, to see if the economy gets better,” he told the council.

The other variable concert promoters are facing is inventory—the number and types of bands that are touring this year.

“It would be great if Justin Bieber, U2, Rush and Sting toured every year," he said. “But the reality is that doesn’t happen.”

However, he did announce that besides the Rush show scheduled for June 26, the Pavilion will host the KBLX Soul Stone concert Memorial Day weekend, as well as Journey and Dolly Parton this summer. Prieshoff said more acts are to be announced.

“We like to release the acts a little at a time,” he said. “That way people don’t get hit over the head all at once.”

And maybe give Live Nation more time to nail down headliners.

Concord has contracted with Live Nation for more than a decade. The initial contract with the city and the Pavilion ended in 2006, and has been extended every two years since then.

The city has worked hard to keep the partnership healthy, and in 2009 when concert promoters asked the city for help since the numbers weren't adding up, it jumped in. In 2010 the city refinanced $8 million of the remaining $12 million of Pavilion debt — from renovation costs — reducing the pavilion’s outside annual debt payment obligations from about $1.4 million to about $445,000, mainly by renegotiating interest rates.

Now, the city must pay about $450,000 each year to outside bondholders, and will have to pay about $250,000 to repay the internal loans each year.

But Concord is only one of many cities across the country in which Live Nation has had problems. Earlier this year, the organization announced that its net loss in 2010 more than tripled as concert attendance fell and ticket sales for other events also slumped.

The company — which last year merged with Ticketmaster — said its net loss for the fourth quarter hit $124 million, or 72 cents per share, passing the combined $104 million in losses it reported for the first nine months off 2010.

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In other Concord news, the City Council agreed to use $500,000 from the East Bay Regional Park District's Measure WW to replace 14 light poles at Willow Pass baseball fields, after a 45-year-old pole toppled onto a dugout last month.