Producer Of Noisy Concert Touts Economic Clout

As residents of San Leandro and Alameda wonder what possessed the authorities who allowed the weekend concert that prompted hundreds of noise complaints, the answer may be simple: follow the money.

Insomniac, which staged Saturday night's Beyond Wonderland concert at the Oakland Coliseum, today released an economic analysis of the impact of a three-day Carnival that it held in June in Las Vegas.

That analysis said the event "pumped an estimated $207 million into the Clark County economy" and "created an estimated $13.1 million in tax revenue for state and local government."

The Coliseum concert was a far, far smaller affair and would not bring in anything approaching that revenue.

But Insomiac touted its economic clout today in the face of adverse reaction to the concert and to the legal issues facing its leader, Pasquale Rotella. 

Officials from the city of Oakland and the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Authority have issued a joint apology for the noisy event.

But Ignacio DeLaFuente, chair of the Oakland-Alameda Co. Coliseum Authority, said in a recent radio interview with KCBS that the manager of the Coliseum, the Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG), has a free hand in managing the site and doesn't answer to the board.

AEG got the Coliseum new management contract on a 7-1 vote in June.

According to a San Francisco Business Times article in the wake of that vote, Alameda County Supervisor and Coliseum Authority board member is quoted as saying: “I see facilities that are actually making money and I ask myself, ‘Why can’t that be us?’”

Meanwhile, AEG, a behemoth in sports and live entertainment, is reportedly up for sale for $5 billion to $7 billion.

(Get San Leandro Patch delivered by email. Like us on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter @sanleandropatch. Or start your own blog.)