LEAs Recognize Avram

Marcel Avram was recognized for his “lifetime achievement” at the inaugural Live Entertainment Awards held at Hamburg’s Fliegende Bauten February 16th.

The LEAs, which are a joint venture between weekly trade magazine Musikmarkt and the IDKV promoters association, were set up to honour the achievements of the German live entertainment industry.

Avram received the award from veteran German promoter Fritz Rau, a former colleague and LEA president, whose speech referred to the fact the winner is the only German promoter to have produced a worldwide tour. He described him as a great role model for the live industry who is respected throughout the globe.

After saying he hopes his life’s work is “far from finished yet,” Avram thanked former and current partners including Rau, Marek Lieberberg, DEAG chief Peter Schwenkow and Ossy Hoppe of Wizard Promotions, whose company won the best-selling event LEA for a U2 show that drew 77,435 to Munich’s Olympic Stadium.

After the presentation, Avram told Musikmarkt that nothing during his 38 years in the business had made him as nervous as the five-minute acceptance speech.

“Best Arena Tour” went to Hamburg’s FKP Scorpio for Coldplay, while the Berlin-based Four Artists – which represents Die Fantastischen Vier, Seeed, 2raumwohnung and Max Herre – was voted best agent.

Henning Toegel from Moderne Welt said innovative, mutually beneficial marketing campaigns run in cahoots with sponsors were responsible for his company winning the prize for best “non-music” events. Those campaigns produced 160,000 ticket sales.

Despite sellout tours with Harlem Globetrotters, David Copperfield, and The Chippendales, Toegel is quick to point out that Moderne Welt is still very active in promoting music and said his company’s overall figures for 2005 were 26 tours comprising 249 shows. The shows brought in 310,355 paying customers and produced revenues of euro 11 million.

He said turnover was double that of the previous year and profits were three times higher.

Best live music location was Ferropolis, which is on an island on Gremminger Lake (near Graefenheinichen) and was once an open coal mining site. It’s now the home of Melt Festival.

The other winners in the music categories included best club tour, which went to Undercover Entertainment for its dates with Silbermond, while Emanuel Fialik of Pilgrim won best manager for his work with Rammstein.

C&E Concert & Event won best selling tour for its Peter Maffay run and best festival went to Media On-Line Management for the Classic Open Air it stages on Berlin’s Gendarmenmarkt.

–John Gammon