Rain Expected In Honolulu

Jeong Ji-hoon, the Korean pop star and actor known as Rain, may have recently settled a lawsuit with a popular Beatles tribute band over the use of his stage name, but the show’s not over yet.

Legal proceedings for another, somewhat connected, Rain lawsuit are under way in U.S. District Court in Honolulu following a 2007 concert cancellation that left promoter Click Entertainment seeking $40 million in damages from the K-popster and several of his producers.
According to Click Entertainment’s suit, the company booked Rain for a June 15, 2007, date at Honolulu’s Aloha Stadium, purchasing licensing rights from Korea for $500,000.

However, after the Beatles tribute act (“Rain: The Beatles Experience”) filed its copyright suit against the singer, Rain’s handlers claimed the show had to be canceled.
Eric Seitz, the attorney who represents Click, told Pollstar at the time that his client did not believe the name game had anything to do with the cancellation.

“There were arguments raised that this lawsuit in Las Vegas was an impediment to going ahead with the tour here,” Seitz said. “We’re somewhat appalled by that because there are trademark infringements all the time, or threats of them, and normally they’re settled or resolved in some matter. They don’t scuttle a multimillion-dollar tour based on that consideration. … If need be, they could have just settled with the people who were filing this lawsuit.”

Click claims it sustained losses of “valuable business opportunities, earnings and income” and “suffered serious and lasting harm to its business goodwill and professional reputation.”

The company is seeking damages for costs associated with staging the event at Aloha Stadium, production, travel, hotel accommodations, merchandising and advertising. Along with Rain, the suit names JYP Entertainment, Star M Entertainment and Revolution Entertainment, among others, as defendants.

Rain will reportedly appear in court during the litigation.

The Honolulu incident was just the first of many U.S. cancellations for the singer.

A June 30, 2007 date at the Staples Center in Los Angeles was scrapped hours before showtime “due to issues related to the show’s production,” promoters said at the time, and Rain’s entire U.S. tour was eventually abandoned.