Jon Bon Jovi will play Vancouver after all, but at a different venue and without the involvement of the local production company that had been working to bring the event to Vancouver.
The August 22 concert has been relocated to Rogers Arena instead of Stanley Park. No new tickets will be sold, but the show is open to all existing ticket holders, who will be “assigned to a seating section according to the ticket level previously purchased,” according to a statement from Jon Bon Jovi Management.
“As the band’s management has said this morning, Jon just really wanted to play,” said Ty Speer, CEO of Tourism Vancouver.
Tourism Vancouver owns the non-profit Tickets Tonight, which had been handling ticket sales for the concert. Speers said around 7,000 tickets had been sold; the original concert was expected to draw 14,000 people. Rogers Arena has a total seating capacity of 18,630. Ticket prices had ranged from $40 to $600.
“The band’s management and Rogers Arena got together and they’ve done an amazing amount of work in the last 24 hours to the point where they’re now confident they can deliver the right show,” Speer said.
In a follow-up email, Tourism Vancouver said Tickets Tonight is not trying to sell additional tickets because "the priority is on putting on a really great show for the original group who purchased tickets … given the concert is just a few days away there isn’t time to manage additional ticket sales."
The saga started on August 17 when Paper Rain announced they had asked Bon Jovi’s management for the concert to be postponed.
Vancouver Park Board chair John Coupar told Business in Vancouver that Paper Rain did not yet have the required permits to hold the concert in the park.
The band's representative, Bon Jovi Tours, then issued a statement to media saying that “unfortunately, the local promoter, Paper Rain Performances, has proven unable to guarantee a properly produced event … As such, they have not met their contractual obligations.”
On August 19, Paper Rain Performances, the production company that had been working to arrange the Stanley Park concert, announced it had filed for bankruptcy.
“What we have here is a situation where an organization that was behind this and promoting this event just kind of failed at every step,” Speer said. “What’s really unfortunate is that the failings that took place didn’t come to light until the weekend.
"You have a situation where the organization that’s responsible for this, which is the promoter, failed to get a permit, they failed to pay their suppliers, they failed to pay the band, they clearly failed to let anybody know that there was any potential risk of a problem until the last minute.”
In their August 19 press released, Paper Rain Productions stated, "the reality is that not enough tickets were sold to cover the cost of the artist and band’s fee, much less the other substantial costs involved."
The production company said it had tried to work with Bon Jovi's management to hold the concert at a later date.
“We were not allowed access to the artist for media interviews," the company said in a statement. "We repeatedly requested access to collateral and marketing support materials but were advised that such materials did not exist. In the final week before the show we were advised the artist would not be bringing merchandise for sale; and VIP tickets that were reserved for the Jon Bon Jovi fan club have never paid for."
Paper Rain Production’s principal, Dennis MacDonald, had successfully mounted an outdoor concert featuring Faith Hill in Whistler in 2004. But in 2007, the band Kiss sued MacDonald and his production company Big Mountain Concert Co. for cancelling a Whistler concert, according to media reports.
One of MacDonald’s partners for the Jon Bon Jovi concert was well-known Vancouver businessman Arthur Griffiths. When the concert was announced on June 12, Griffiths told Business in Vancouver he hoped the concert, which had a $2 million budget, would lead to a string of concerts around the world.
- with files from Glen Korstrom
@jenstden
