Independent Denver promoter Bill Bass has re-signed with House of Blues Concerts
to co-promote shows for the next three years. Both HOB and Clear Channel
Entertainment were in a bidding war for a deal with Bass since his company would
help them both meet obligations to the city for booking shows at Red Rocks (CelebrityAccess, February 8). A fierce battle erupted between HOB and CCE last fall over who the primary promoter would be (October 5, 31, November 11, 2001). Both parties reached an agreement where they would each promote at least 10 shows (CelebrityAccess, November 28). Bass produces Reggae on the Rocks and promotes Widespread Panic and those five shows became a valuable commodity in helping either promoter to meet its show quota.
Fey told CelebrityAccess he was very happy with the decision.
Bass also received bids from Jam Productions in Chicago and Fantasma in Florida.
"The bottom line is I promote because I love to promote," Bass
told the Rocky Mountain News. "I became a promoter because there was nothing
else I wanted to do. Barry is one of the few remaining promoters who's
an honest-to-God promoter. There's a lot of accountants and a lot
of bureaucrats and a lot of people trying to take advantage of the
business I love.
"I couldn't stay out there as an independent; I just didn't have the (deep) pockets,"
he continued. "If you've got the money to run with the sharks, you might have a
chance. I definitely had to get under somebody's umbrella. I just don't find, to my
taste, that Clear Channel is a pure promoter," Bass said, adding that CCE, formerly
SFX "left the industry in shambles, sort of like what the carpetbaggers did to the
South after the Civil War. SFX head Fred Sillerman destroyed my business.
He rewrote the way it's played. He's taken all the imagination and
grace, for lack of a better word, out of the business."
Fey says that he's looking at between 30 and 35 concerts this season for Fiddler's Green and Red Rocks combined.
