Ottawa Promoter: Country Fest Going To Be Alrighty

Benoit went into media silence after his 2012 show got scrubbed near launch time but recently spoke to the Ottawa Citizen.

In between he launched lawsuits against Taylor Swift‘s promoter and a couple of bloggers that he said disparaged the event. Benoit said a misleading story in the Citizen started a snowball of problems.

He had a successful 2011 festival featuring Carrie Underwood and Kenny Chesney that drew 47,000 fans. But a June 2012 Citizen article reported that upcoming headliner Swift had returned most of her $2.5 million fee, which the paper has admitted was incorrect.

“It created such a confidence issue in the community,” Benoit told the paper. “Immediately following that article, we were bombarded with refund requests.” Because of the story and other coverage, “I felt that the public had absolutely no confidence left in the festival. … I didn’t feel that anyone would believe what I said.”

Meanwhile, the City of Ottawa demanded nearly $500,000 for police, fire, emergency services and transit. Benoit paid $97,000 for those services the year before, so he withheld payment until the city could explain the increase.

Instead, they withdrew his permit when he missed a $150,000 payment deadline.

“I didn’t think they’d do that,” he told the paper. “I thought they’d continue to work with us.”

The 2012 event was scheduled for August but Benoit canceled in July. He sued Swift and her team for $1.8 million to reclaim money for her advance.

Tickets had been processed through a company called Evo Merchant Services, which refunded ticket buyers. Evo sued AEG / The Messina Group, Swift’s promoter and agency, to reclaim some, or all, of Swift’s guarantee.

He also sued a local musician who goes by Lefty McRighty, seeking $250,000 for being “severely injured” by a blog post.

The lawsuit was settled and McRighty apologized. He also sued Cornwall promoter Jeff Brunet for a comment made to a local newspaper.

Now that the dust has settled, Benoit said he will bring the Hoedown back in 2015 or 2016. He said he has already had preliminary talks with agents that have been positive.

“There’s going to be no problem booking the desired acts,” he said. “I’m not looking at relaunching this on a small scale. What I’m trying to do is pick up where we left off in 2011.”