Two More Pineapples
For Lieberberg

Marek Lieberberg’s patchy relationship with the German Live Entertainment Awards appears to be going through one of its smoother passages as he picked up two more of the gongs he once referred to as “golden pineapples” at Frankfurt Messe Hall. 

Rock Im Pott, the new one-dayer he produces with Medusa Group colleague Dirk Becker in the Veltins Arena – home to Bundesliga soccer side Schalke 04 – took Festival Of The Year.

It made its debut last August, when 45,000 showed for a line-up that had Red Hot Chili Peppers, Placebo, Jan Delay, The BossHoss, and Kraftklub.

Leberberg and Becker will be back for more in the Gelsenkirchen soccer stadium with a retractable roof August 18.

This year’s bill has System Of A Down, Volbeat, Tenacious D, Casper, Deftones, and Biffy Clyro.

Lieberberg also took Concert Of The Year for the Coldplay show he promoted at the Red Bull Arena in Leipzig.
He and the LEAs haven’t always seen eye-to-eye since he stormed out in 2007 because Rock Am Ring lost out to Sonne Mond Sterne in the same category as Rock Im Pott has just won.

The irony was that he later won Best Promoter – which this year went to Nuremburg-based undercover gmbh – but there was nobody left to collect it because the Marek Lieberberg Konzertagentur entourage had followed him out.

He said the awards were “self-serving” and dismissed what the German live music business likes to call its Oscars as being no more than “golden pineapples.”

The fuss was still rumbling on in 2011 when he won a couple of awards but told the LEA jury he didn’t want them.
There was no telling when the feud would end and it probably wouldn’t have done if Medusa Group and CTS Eventim chief Klaus-Peter Schulenberg hadn’t brokered a truce in the lead up to last year’s bash. Lieberberg actually turned up for the first time in five years – although his office is in the same city – and left with the pineapple for Best Promoter.

This year it looked as if Schulenberg has finally persuaded Lieberberg that the LEAs aren’t so bad. When picking up the Best Concert award, he told the packed Messe Hall that the LEAs are “a better show than the Echoes,” the country’s televised music industry awards.

The other major prize winners at a packed Frankfurt bash were Ossy Hoppe’s Wizard Promotions, which took Best Arena Tour with Lady Gaga, DEAG’s Grünland Family Entertainment (Best Show with Peter Maffay), and Landstreicher Booking (Best Club Tour with Kraftklub).

Best Club went to the Colos-Saal in Aschaffenburg, Best Arena went to BigBox Allgäu in Kemptens, and Konzertbüro Schoneberg – which operates in Münster, Cologne, Berlin and Frankfurt – was Best Local Promoter.

Best Artist Manager went to Beat Gottwald (BeatTheRich!), En-Suite Event Of The Year went to Stage Entertainment for “Rocky-The Musical,” and the Lifetime Achievement Award went to promoter Michael Russ, who’s worked with Frank Sinatra, Jimi Hendrix, Ella Fitzgerald, Guns N’Roses, and classical acts such as Daniel Barenboim and Anna Netrebko.

As president of the VDKD, one of Germany’s foremost concert promoters’ associations, he’s spent years fighting a corner for the country’s top music promoters.