SINGAPORE (CelebrityAccess MediaWire) — The Singapore Tourism Board has filed a lawsuit against a London-based concert organizer after the cancellation of a mega-concert touted as Singapore’s largest live-entertainment event to date.
The Listen Live concert, organized by Tony Hollingsworth and his companies Children’s Media and Tribute Third Millenium, was originally planned for September 2005, and was presented as a financial windfall for Singapore. It was expected to be beamed to about 500 million people in 80 countries, draw 20,000 tourists, and bring in about $30 million, according to the Straits Times.
The event sought to raise $150 million for disadvantaged children via the global audience.
The tourism board had backed the concert, introducing Hollingsworth to local promoters and helping to secure celebrities including Jamie Lee Curtis and Asian stars Wang Lee Horn, David Tao and Kit Chan. The STB was then told the two-day event would be postponed until April of last year, and finally, in January 2006, told the show would not go on.
The Singapore Tourism Board is seeking to recover more than $6 million that was paid to Hollingsworth’s companies to deliver the event, as well as additional compensation for losses and damages suffered.
The defendants are accused of breaching three agreements that were signed with the STB in 2004 and 2005.
In the court filings, the STB claims that Children’s Media was no more than a front behind which Hollingsworth “knowingly and dishonestly” misused funds. Hollingsworth and both companies have claimed the STB’s accusations are “totally without merit.” –by CelebrityAccess Staff Writers
