Features
DMX Show Shifted
A would-be DMX concert in Lancaster, Pa., was moved, with the promoter claiming the mayor had a say in the matter.
Larry Bently, a fledgling promoter, planned to bring the rapper to the 4,000-capacity Freedom Hall in the
He claims he had been working on the show for several months when he learned from the staff that Mayor Rick Gray had been calling the venue to discourage the show. .
“I certainly don’t control what’s at the convention center,” Gray told the Lancaster New Era. “It sounds to me like he’s looking for an excuse for not properly paying the venue.”
Gray admitted he talked to police chief Keith Sadler, noting DMX’s criminal background and expressing concern the show could bring an unsavory element to the city.
However, Sadler said contacting Gray was routine “for any venue with potentially any issues.”
Gray said he contacted the venue’s marketing director, Josh Nowak, to alert him “to who they were booking at the convention center.”
Bently said he traveled to the venue recently to pay the $7,000 deposit and learned time had expired on signing the contract for the event.
Nowak told Pollstar this was a simple matter of not having the papers signed in time, and that Bentley’s co-promoter has informed the convention center that the event will take place at another venue in York.