Report: Sunset Strip Music Festival lost more than $1 million last year

on
0
Early afternoon at last year's Sunset Strip Music Festival (Photo by Carl Pocket)
Early afternoon at last year's Sunset Strip Music Festival (Photo by Carl Pocket)

The Sunset Strip Music Festival, which went quietly into the night after a seven-year run that featured the likes of Jane’s Addiction, Motley Crue, Empire of the Sun, Smashing Pumpkins, Marilyn Manson and the Offspring, lost more than $1 million last year, according to a report in today’s Los Angeles Times.

The Times, citing an audit of the festival’s producer the Sunset Strip Business Assn., also cited increasing ill will the festival inspired among its West Hollywood neighbors and businesses. The story quoted Maribel Louie, West Hollywood’s arts and economic development manager, as saying: “The idea of closing down a street on the Sunset Strip is unbelievably romantic. The practicality of that is it’s probably the most expensive way to put on a music festival.”

That’s likely a familiar refrain to those who were involved with the Sunset Junction Music Festival, which imploded in 2011 in a cloud of financial problems and neighborhood ill will.

Today’s Times story also disclosed that concert promoter Nederlander, with whom the SSMF partnered in 2014, has filed a breach-of-contract lawsuit against the business association and the festival.

Full story here.