SHAKEDOWN was CANCELED!!!

Shakedown Music festival, was canceled......i drove 20 hours to oregon, just to be told it wasn't going to happen.....i didn't get mad, until i got home and truly realized it wasn't going down.....i'm so pissed, i'm itting in my house when i should be on my way to a HYDRA show.....god this sucks.....and the only explination was, "its out of our hands"....not only do they owe me money for the ticket, they should be paying for the hundreds of dollars in gas.......but that will never happen......was anyone else royally screwed by the promoters of shakedown????

 

I've yet to get my money back for Zooma...

 

Damn...you drove 20 hours only to be told it wasn't happening? DAMN. Sorry, man...

 

UGHHHH I KNOW!!!!!! I was SO pissed, and sad.

My roommate and I drove over 300 miles, only to find out that it was CANCELLED.

ON MY 21st BIRTHDAY! TALK ABOUT A SHITTY BIRTHDAY! so i was stuck in Eugene away from all my friends with no show to go to in a stupid motel on my birthday. uggghhhhhh

 

damn....im glad i didnt end up making that long drive, as i had planned to do all summer

 

sorry you went through that.

 

i just found out that we should of continued on to Portland, because GALACTIC was playing one night, and to be followed by PARTICLE the next night!!! then the EVERYONE ORCHESTRA with STEVE KIMOCK!!! instead we drove back to SAn Fran to one Particle show and go home, what a horrible decision.....the PARTICLE show kicked ass though....

 

http://www.thebigwu.com/wusletter.asp

the bands are feeling your pain also. Gas prices and people's time are not something to be toyed with.

 

i thought it was going to kick ass....and it would of.....

 

I wonder why it was cancelled? anybody know?

I just read MMW had no clue...

 

i can't get ahold of anybody with Shakedown.....how do i get my refund?

 

Keller didn't seem to know it was cancelled either as it wasn't updated on his site till after I saw this thread and they said "we were just informed"... Alot of the bands are just as irritated.

 

That's shit man , i hope that one day you'll get your money back ...

 

Howdy,
I handled the poster and flyer distribution for the Shakedown Festival in the Portland area. I've been working with Hal for the past 3 months and it has been a please. I'm just as upet as all you that got screwed. I think we all got screwed, except for the production assholes...please read Hal's release.

Fortuntely, I did make it to Galactic & Particle.

 

Shakedown Meltdown Posted 8/29/05

We are waiting for information on refunds but in general, you should go back to where you bought your tickets.

(This was written by Hal Abramson and was posted as soon as possible. Some close people involved up to now, told me not to express my full opinion, so they are exonerated from any thing that happens as a result of me telling the truth.)

Last week an attorney said, “the Shakedown is happening right now.”
I was an idiot to call it that.. my dream came true, wrapped in a horror story.
Me, my friends, the vendors, contractors, hundreds of workers and volunteers and all of the people who bought a ticket or walked, rode, flew to buy a ticket at the Gate, we all just got fucked!

Why would I cancel an event I worked on for 6 months and dreamed of for almost 30 years?
Hal Abramson, Stylus Shows, Inc. nor the “promoter” canceled the festival. We were ready and excited about the crowd that would appear over the 3 ½ days. We got shut out!

Just prior to 1pm PT on Thurs. Aug. 25, Lowell MacGregor (Lowell MacGregor Group (LMG)- the people we rented the property from), approved of his attorney calling ours and stating that the show was officially canceled. He shut down our music festival 3 hours before it was scheduled to start at 4pm when early entry was to begin. Absolute insanity!!! We were just about to get the show paid for… and have a real good time!!!

It was hot and summery. The best jamband lineup in the region’s history had been contracted. Plenty of fun-seeking people from more than 35 states and 3 provinces in Canada ready to gather, all had their heart set on a great event. After 4 months of promotion, the festival had arrived.

Lowell MacGregor’s action was the dumbest thing I ever seen, heard or imagined in my knowledge of music festival history.

We were waiting for months for the gate money to pay back our investors and costs. We lost everything as soon as the festival was canceled. We were all sick with grief.

Lowell MacGregor knew that ticket buyers, vendors and contractors would all come to us for refunds. He forced the refunds. He destroyed our event, then tried to make me the scape goat by putting my phone numbers on an electric sign telling people to call me for refunds. He knew exactly what he was doing. Did you all know that if an event cancels, the promoter is still responsible for paying the balances on all contracts including the band’s cost? Lowell knew that. Pretty dirty maneuver.


Instead of working with us on building a great production by working together over 8 weeks, Lowell McGregor became increasingly compulsive about covering his expenses to the point of making demands we could not meet, way after the original agreement was accepted. The terms changed frequently at the end.

Though verbally agreed to about June 8, Lowell turned to Eric in a meeting I attended in their offices in Vancouver, WA, just 13 days before, and said “well, now that we know we have a festival”. Apparantly, none of them recognized this as a real event before that. I feel that was evident in the lackluster and total lack of effort on many aspects.

I would not believe a word anybody there says. In my opinion, they are in deep legal and criminal shit and will do anything to make me look like the bad guy.

Why did he cancel the festival?
Lowell MacGregor could not be satisfied and was making increasingly unrealistic and uncooperative financial demands on us. He treated us like he hated us and we had already paid his company $32,500. We were about to pay him another agreed to $25,000 that Thursday Aug. 25.

He then required me to assign the TicketsWest $40,000 to him. That $97,500. was not enough. Though the agreement called for a venue rental of $110,000, he wanted it all in advance and then wanted additional expenses guaranteed paid up front when we had no chance to check any of these costs.

This was not enough. He then demanded we cash out the Tickets West funds being held or he would cancel. Tickets West would sell tickets through Sunday but Lowell threatened us again with closure unless I agreed to pay him in cash for these tickets he could redeem on Sunday. At that time, this would have been $38,000. At this point I felt that he was a mad man and I told my attorney that I thought he was very dangerous. I felt that if we kept signing whatever he put in front of me we would finally get to the show. We got to 3 hours before and the bastard pulled the plug.

He forced us to sign over ALL gate receipts until he was satisfied he had been paid enough. To say that this was in our original contract is untrue.

And although originally agreed to pay talent balances out of gate money, he re-nigged on that in the last week. As he also withdrew an earlier offer to consider paying for half the shade systems we needed to install to protect the customers, even though this was a deficit of his venue. It’s basically a big open field.

If he cares at all about music, community and doing the right thing, he sure has a peculiar and damaging way of showing it.

I think much of his disdain for us comes from an email I sent to Eric months ago when I saw the depth of their ineptitude in vending and sponsor procurement I said “Lowell MacGregor sucks” in the context of my complaint.

When we got thrown out of Hornings, I called LMG about the availability of Columbia Meadows. We were most concerned with the guarantee of permitting. We chose it because it was in the same area, seemed friendly and could guarantee a permit.
Lowell MacGregor was asked for a venue rental contract immediately due tot he fact we needed to advertise the new location. He was unwilling to send me an email confirming this but said he would get us a contract, that his word was good and that we had the venue. We discussed a basic rental figure and there were no strange stipulations at that time. After pleading with him almost daily and being promised daily, it took Lowell MacGregor six and a half weeks to get us an urgent contract. He constantly remained me that he “saved our show”. I guess saving a festival is allowing someone to rent your property than canceling the event just before the renter can open the gates.

We received a vague, poorly written, brief document that was not acceptable. We sent it back and pushed through our attorney to get the contract back. We signed it without having time to negotiate specifics of many terms that were left general. We need a venue contract for a month and a half.

I discovered Lowell had no experience working on multi-day music festivals and was unwilling for me to have any control over the concert venue other than putting the bands on stage. He strangely thought the concert area was his to manage and I should manage the festival camping area. It became obvious that we would have to give up a lot to put the show there, but what choice did we have in those time restraints?
Lowell MacGregor Group was to receive 82 ½ % of beer and 87 ½% of food vending.

LMG contracted with us early while still at Horning’s to manage the stage and to handle and manage vendors and obtain sponsors. In a region of microbrews, they were unable to secure any sponsors of any kind. Only about 18 crafts vendors were able to get through the system to get a booth. LMG knew that I was very upset at their handling of our vending/ sponsor affairs and Eric Meyers at LMG said on more than one occasion “it’s disgraceful”. Lowell was in total denial of any wrong-doing and was combative with me when I complained about the poor performance and effort. Real good customer service skills there Lowell! He said repeatedly “they were doing a good job”. Is he delusional? Though requested, we never even received a final list of vendors, and it was our festival. Columbia Meadows has no web site and when asked why repeatedly, I was ignored.

The venue’s production literature and management’s thoughts were that they were going to stop vehicles not only to confiscate beer but to take food. I don’t think they understand what a music festival and campout is. People campout and eat. They also like beer and wine. They also like to dance and smile a lot. We’ll never know how much.

At first, until I took him by the shoulders and looked in his eyes explaining the right way, he was against people camping next to their cars. In addition, Lowell did not want people parking for one day allowed to walk into the camping area. I’m not making this up. They refused to allow me to speak to the Security Company until less than a week before the event. This is nuts!

I have even heard some saying I left with ticket money. Untrue, all of the funds available were spent up to show time except monies being sent back to Baseline. We had enough money to get us to the show and planned it that way back before Horning’s. I was forced to leave with my entire staff and because production services immediately expected the rest of their contracts paid regardless of using and of their services, my life was in clear danger. Everyone was looking for me. I was just waiting for the show start a few minutes before. Can you imagine how I feel? If this is life, it’s just not worth it friends.
To get my staff back to their homes, I used what was left on my credit cards to get air tickets. There was no money available by the time we left. I did not take a salary and put all of what I had into the project.

Here’s the simple math:
Total spent up to Thurs. 8/25: $ 262,000 From investment and Baseline advances
Projected to spend Thurs. 8/25: $ 40,000 in account
$ 15,000 from gate
Projected to spend Fri. 8/26: $ 46,000 from gate
Projected to spend Sat. 8/27: $ 42,000 from gate
Projected to spend Sun 8/28: $ 65,000 from gate
Afterward: $ 30,000

Total cost approx: = $500,000.

Total income: Baseline Ticketing: approx. $172,000
Tickets West: approx. $ 42,000
Vendors/ Tshirts/ RVs approx. $ 12,400

Investment: $120,000
Total income generated before gates opened: $346,400

Amount needed to pay all bills and breakeven: $153,600

Approx # of 3 day. tix (incl. concessions) to breakeven: 1,121 tickets more
This without any one day tickets included.

Lowell MacGregor obviously did not believe there would be enough in attendance to cover costs, or he would not have been so scared to pay his bills. We would have had 5,000 – 7,500 people at least attend the event. We sold 2,400 tickets up to Thursday morning. Days before, Lowell told my attorney that he had to balance the cost of litigation with amount he’d lose in unpaid costs. Does this sound like a guy that really wants to work with his renter. His fatalistic dream was self-fulfilling. I hope his ego feels real good at causing such devastation among so many… an abhorated man he is.

Unfortunately for Lowell, he signed a contract renting us the venue as long as we met our obligations. We were current on all bills the morning of August 25 and intended on making our next $25,000 payment that day. His used last minute demands, threats and shakedown methods because he knew he had us. This will not stand.

Yes, I am not from there. It’s easy not to believe someone who is distant. All of my words are true and full of meaning. I can never promote again. Others around me have had their careers destroyed. So many upset and disappointed people. The senselessness of it all. Your disgust for the whole situation is valid. Just don’t direct your anger toward me. I only tried as hard as I could to keep Lowell MacGregor from canceling the festival for weeks. I gave everything to him. I am truly sorry for every one of us.

LMG is telling people:

“Due to circumstances beyond venue control the show
has been cancelled.
Please contact The Shakedown Festival Office at:
Hal Abramson with Stylus Shows”

“Due to circumstances beyond their control”,
What dirty liars, it was totally under their control”.
This catastrophic outcome was totally unnecessary and their doing.

Since this man and his company are so hateful and vindictive toward me, I will repay the favor of offering you their contact info.

Lowell Macgregor Group, LLC
Lowell MacGregor Cell: 360-433-1040 President lowell@lmgllc.com

Eric Mayers Cell: 503-475-4913
Ofc: 360-696-9093 Fx: 360-735-7661 Prod. Mgr. eric@lmgllc.com

400 East Evergreen, Suite 305, Vancouver, WA 98660


My favorite quote from Lowell MacGregor:
August 18, 2005 8 days before the festival….

“If you don’t like the way we run our business, take your festival elsewhere”

I should have.

 

Gah, I'm sure we all feel this way... But I hate how people can't even get together to have a good festival anymore. Someone always has to be the weak link in the chain and be a little greedy and take more than a fair share or screw it up for thousands of people. I wonder how many people's plans were ruined and how much money was wasted along the way just for an extra dollar or two in advance...

Or something happens like MTV buys rights...

 

Mtv bought rights to BANNAROO, am i right??