Concord On A Diet

The city council of Concord, Calif., has renewed an agreement with Live Nation to continue running the Sleep Train Pavilion – although the new agreement is not like the old.

Live Nation has been managing the amphitheatre for more than a decade. Under its previous agreement, the city was guaranteed $1.1 million annually plus revenue on a $2 ticket surcharge, according to the Contra Costa Times.

This time around, the city is guaranteed less than half that at $500,000 annually and the surcharge has been hiked to $3. The contract runs for two years with an option to extend it for a third, the paper reported.

The city would like to cover the debt from the Pavilion’s 1995 restoration. In 2009, the city reportedly bought back $8 million of about $12 million in outstanding bonds from the project. Concord must now pay $450,000 annually to outside bondholders and expects to pay $250,000 annually for internal loans.

The city hired a consultant two years ago to see if Live Nation was the best choice for the shed and word came back to stay the course, according to the Times.