MEG Grabs Major Slice
Of A.S.S.

German venue operator and show producer Mehr Entertainment Group has bought a controlling interest in Hamburg-based A.S.S. Concerts & Promotion.

At press time it wasn’t clear just how much MEG paid for the 50 percent-plus stake.

“It’s one of the best-kept secrets in the music industry and one I’ll keep for the rest of my life,” A.S.S. co-chief exec Michael Bisping told Pollstar.

The deal was completed Dec. 10 although negotiations reportedly started in April 2012.

Düsseldorf-based MEG runs seven 1,500-capacity theatre venues in its home city, Cologne, Berlin, Bremen and will open a new theatre in Hamburg in 2014.

It hopes A.S.S. will help provide the talent to keep these rooms busy.

Bisping says he and Dieter Schubert, who formed the company in 1986, had no thoughts of selling it.

But in MEG they found “like-minded people” and so what Bisping describes as “the two stubborn old guys” decided to let go the major part of the company.