More Nu Coast Than New APG

Pollstar can reveal three of Austria’s major live music producers are forming a new alliance, although apparently without the lofty ambitions of the now-defunct Austrian Promoters Group.

Although the new company – called Nu Coast – hasn’t shown up on the Austrian equivalent of the Companies House Web site, it’s believed Richard Hoermann, Ewald Tatar and Harry Jenner have completed the final stages of putting the firm together and an announcement is expected in the near future.

It wasn’t possible to get comment from Hoermann, Tatar or Jenner at press time near the holiday break, but Pollstar understands that Nu Coast will help all three cut back-office overheads as well as ticketing and production costs.

Another benefit may be that the three promoters, who have had varying degrees of success in some of the neighbouring countries, may create a more cohesive approach to central and southeastern Europe.

The company is believed to be an equal-partnership joint-venture between Barracuda Holding GmbH – the umbrella company for Tatar’s Nova Music and Jenner’s MusicNet – and Hoermann’s Austrian Entertainment.

The first clues to its existence came when Nu Coast shows including Pink, Elton John, Joss Stone and other acts usually associated with Hoermann began to be advertised on the Nova Music Web site.

If all three are to continue to run their own shows, then the business model would appear similar to the Austrian Promoters Group.

APG effectively put six companies under the same roof at the beginning of 2001. It was much bigger and included Hoermann, Tatar, Franz Bogner, Wolfgang Klinger, Manfred Leodolter, Paul Debnam, Peter Froestl, Alex Nussbaumer, Thomas Zsifkovits and Erich Zawinul.

The roof fell in the following summer when Rock Produktion, the unit run by Klinger and Andi Egger (now head of Österreich Ticket), tanked with debts of about euro 2.5 million.

The whole edifice was rubble a month later when major music and book retailer Libro Entertainment, APG’s parent company and financial support, went down for euro 436 million – then the third-biggest bankruptcy in Austrian commercial history.

A Pollstar source close to the formation of the new company stresses that Tatar, Hoermann and Jenner are keen to ensure Nu Coast isn’t seen as the second coming of the APG.

Tatar left APG before the collapse, moving away with Bogner, Debnam and Zsifkovits, and Hoermann has been exonerated in every inquiry into its demise.

Jenner was never part of the APG setup and didn’t begin his close association with Tatar until a couple of years after it had gone.