Venue Saves Holiday Event From Scam

When the promoter of a holiday shopping bazaar disappeared two weeks before the event was to take place at Alliant Energy Center in Madison, Wis., venue GM Mark Clarke realized not only was his venue holding the bag, but some 150 vendors who’d paid for booth space and inventory took a huge hit.

So he decided to take the lemons and make lemonade, throwing the venue open for the Dec. 10-11 event anyway. “We realized vendors were out of their money for booth space,” Alliant Energy Center GM Mark Clarke told Pollstar. “These were crafters, mom-and-pop vendors for whom several hundred dollars is a lot of money. They not only lose vendor fees, but their inventory gets tied up, too.

“We had contact with two of the vendors and said, ‘if you can get a committee together to work with the others and organize the event, we will open the arena and do it anyway.’ We did it because it was the right thing to do.”

Alliant Energy Center provided the venue and hot chocolate free of charge even though it had collected only half the deposit from the original promoter, who is now under criminal investigation.

A spokesperson for the Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection told WISC-TV of Madison that 27 complaints were filed against Street Repeats LLC of Sioux City, Iowa.

If fraud is confirmed, criminal charges can be recommended against the company’s owners. Clarke told Pollstar that the company paid the first deposit on time, but failed to make good on the second despite being given an extension.

Owner Terri Hardy allegedly informed vendors that the company would file bankruptcy and the event was canceled. Events in other states booked by Street Repeats were also canceled. However, Clarke said that to date no bankruptcy filing has been made, and charges are likely to be pursued. “We aren’t going to let them just walk away like that,” Clarke said.