Management of Live Nation Lease Agreements - August 2020

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Management of Live Nation Lease Agreements
Released August 2020

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We undertook this audit due to community concerns about Live Nation’s compliance with lease agreement terms at the Lakewood Amphitheater. Live Nation also holds the lease for the Chastain Park Amphitheater.
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Our recommendation is that city should strengthen lease agreements to ensure unrestricted access to audit all documentation associated with the contract terms including box office statements, ticket manifests, and reports, to provide penalties for late payments, to provide for electronic payments, to require installation of sound monitoring equipment at Lakewood and to clarify name-in-title documentation and approval requirements.

We found:

• The city received $4.2 million in revenue from Live Nation under the lease agreements for Lakewood and Chastain Park Amphitheaters from calendar years 2016 through 2018.
• Although the company provided revenue summaries each year, Live Nation declined to provide detailed documentation to the city to support revenue for the period for either venue.
• City departments with oversight authority over the contracts—Enterprise Assets Management and Parks— have not validated that revenue amounts at the venues were correct and have not consistently monitored compliance with other contract requirements.
• While both the Lakewood and Chastain contracts require sound levels to be monitored, the Lakewood venue has no sound monitoring equipment installed and the contract is unclear about who is responsible for installing the equipment or for monitoring sound levels.