Home > Austin Music Source > Archives > 2008 > March > 31 > Entry
Roches sue Austin promoter
It’s the case of a local promoter who says she “got in way over my head” and a New York-based singing group that was guaranteed $7,500 to perform at Unitarian Universalist Church on Dec. 1. The Roches claim in a breach of contract suit filed March 12 in Travis County, that they’ve received only $200. Through their SRO Artists booking agent, the Roches are suing Sally Cooper of Austin Acoustic Series for money owed, plus attorney fees and court costs.
“I will do everything I can to pay the group, even if it means getting a second job,” Cooper said Monday. Needing to sell 250 tickets to break even, Cooper said she sold only 111 tickets to “The Roches With a Holiday Twist.” In a Dec. 6, 2007 email to SRO, however, Cooper lamented “I am painfully aware that we only sold 150 tickets” at $35 each.
“I knew I wouldn’t have the money to pay them, so I offered to cancel the show, to put it all on me,” Cooper said. She said she told the group this at 2 p.m. on the day of the show.
“They were already in Austin, so they decided to do the show on good faith,” said Jeff Laramie of Madison, Wis.-based SRO. “We were told that the money was tied up with the ticketing agency, so we gave her a Fed Ex number to send the money. We were expecting to be paid in full… And then we got two hundred dollars.” Laramie said the Roches told him that the 300-capacity venue looked about 90% full.
Cooper said almost all of the ticket money went to expenses for the concert. Another act, Seattle-based Tingstad & Rumbel, also claims to have been stiffed by Cooper in late 2006. They were guaranteed $2,500 and received a check for that amount after the performance. But manager Carol Tingstad said the check bounced. Tingstad said Cooper said she’d pay the debt in increments, but the duo has yet to see a penny.
“We like to work with smaller promoters, to help them out,” Tingstad said. “They usually eventually come through. But in 23 years of booking, we’ve never been not paid anything.”
Cooper said the Tingstad & Rumbel show was poorly attended and so she didn’t have the money to pay the group. She said she told the duo the check wouldn’t clear, but to hold onto it until she had paid the guarantee in full. “It’s being taken care of,” said Cooper, who was served papers by the Travis County attorney’s office to make good on the check.
Austin-based agent Val Denn, who booked Ray Bonneville to play the Austin Acoustic Series March 28, said her acts have always been paid in full by Cooper. “I think she made a mistake with the size of the ($7,500) guarantee with the Roches and she probably learned a big lesson,” Denn said of Cooper, whose music business experience before promoting shows was working at Camelot record stores for 11 years.
Meanwhile, the Austin Acoustic Series continues at Unitarian Universalist Church with Johnsmith on April 11 and Kate Campbell April 13.
Follow Austin Music Source on Facebook and Twitter.
Comments
When commenting, we ask that you keep things civil and abide by our Visitor Agreement. To report comment abuse, click here.
By Joel McTeague
April 3, 2008 1:46 AM | Link to this
I am a concerned Roches fan and have been checking back on this item since it was first posted Monday and it keeps changing. Now today within the same paragraph, it first says 111 tickets were sold and then 150. (At $35 a head, that is an extra $ 1,365.) Then, this line only appears in the first version: “Cooper said almost all of the estimated $3,885 collected for tickets went to expenses for the concert.”
150 tickets sold would’ve netted over $5000! Still, my primary question for the promoter is: if a concert in this series cost 3800 -4000 dollars in expenses to “produce”, and most names on the roster are not nearly as famous as The Roches, what is the point of continuing a series with this kind of overhead? I am fairly sure the artist’s contract covered plane fare and etc, so how could the series expenses be $4000 before she even paid them? An itemized accounting would be a good start for both of these concerts.
By Patrick
April 10, 2008 11:16 PM | Link to this
Thank you, 360, for bringing attention to what seems like a promoter who doesn’t learn. When you “guarantee” payment to a performer, that doesn’t mean you cross your fingers and hope for good ticket sales, and then write a rubber check if things don’t work out. “Promoting” involves risk, and it’s totally wrong for a promoter to offload the risk of poor ticket sales onto the performer by the simple expedient of maintaining an empty bank account. Even if T&R and the Roches never get what they’ve earned, at least as long as this article stays up it’s possible for future performers to Google this promoter and be forewarned. Good on the Roches for shining a light into this dark corner of the Austin music scene.