The dance music business is getting messy in the Pacific North West after Insomniac Events recently filed suit against the region’s largest promoter, Conscious Entertainment Group (parent company to USC Events that co-produces Paradiso and other large scale festivals) and its CEO Chad Anderson.
Insomniac is suing Anderson and his company for the misuse of over $2 million dollars, which Insomniac had advanced to them in order to pay various art agencies to get an ‘early’ start on 2019 festival lineup announcements. It was made known that when the festival had begun, Anderson had yet to foot the bill to the artist agencies and vendors. Insomniac had to shell out an additional $1.5 million to pay the agencies that Anderson and his company were supposed to pay off with the approved advancements.
“Chad is the literal king of gaslighting and manipulation and had us thinking Insomniac was just fucking us over,” a previous USC employee told EDM.com. “To us, they were the ones drawing out the process and we had no idea, so this is all new information to me too … I was told we were waiting for the settlement to pay the upset vendors. I didn’t know any better, but now that I do I’m even more pissed than I was.”
Within the lawsuit, Insomniac has brought to light that due to a couple of acts that breach their contract of non-compete with USC Events: 1) the unapproved early announcement of USC Events producing the 2020 festival, and 2) the forbidden use of the Paradiso trademark name; that Insomniac would like judicial approval to produce their own summer event at the Gorge Amphitheater.
“Insomniac wishes to promote an electronic dance music event at the Gorge Amphitheatre this summer without USC’s involvement and seeks judicial confirmation that Insomniac is no longer bound by the non-compete obligation because the Agreement has been terminated,” reads a passage from the lawsuit.
You can read up on the full lawsuit down below.
Leave a Reply