Twiin Lawsuit Peaks

Jackie Kane of Santa Barbara, Calif.-based Jacalyn Kane Productions has filed a nearly half-million-dollar lawsuit against fellow SoCal promoter Twiin Productions, which she claims asked for her expertise but avoided paying her.

Twiin Productions promoted the 2007 West Beach Music & Arts Festival, which was financially unsuccessful. Kane claims she was recruited by Twiin’s principals, Jeremy and Joshua Pemberton, to help bring acts with name recognition to the 2008 version, which ran for three nights in September and included Jason Mraz, Kate Voegele and Jackie Green.

Kane also claims that, after the two companies conjoined in a ticketing company, Twiin used it as a model to create an alternate ticketing company and shifted all of the ticket sales through it. Although Kane and Twiin signed noncompete, nondisclosure, noncircumvent and engagement agreements, Twiin did not share revenue with Kane, the lawsuit alleges.

There are 17 complaints for damages including breach of contract, fraud, conspiracy, conversion and usurpation of corporate opportunities. Kane seeks $436,750 in damages plus attorney fees.

Twiin Productions did not have comment at press time, although Jeremy Pemberton spoke to the Daily Sound newspaper a week earlier.

“In our mind, it’s not even a headache to us because we have confidence in how this will end up,” Pemberton said, adding it would “go away quickly” and the company’s attorney was drafting a detailed response. The response was expected to be available to the public Aug. 28 but was yet to be available at press time.

Pemberton added that similar allegations had cropped up before but he thought the issue had been resolved.

“I’m surprised that he would say that,” Kane attorney James Scafide told Pollstar. “Ms. Kane has made numerous demands both for full accounting and for the money she’s owed and due. They’ve not paid it. So I don’t know why anyone would think the matter is resolved.”

Kane claims she was recruited to help the West Beach festival because of her experience and extensive contacts in the industry. According to the lawsuit, not only did Twiin eventually circumvent her and try to establish direct relationships with her contacts, the company used their partnership in TwiinKane Ticketing to develop Beach City Tickets, fully owned by Twiin.

Twiin reported total attendance of 12,621. According to the complaint, Twiin told Kane that the festival lost $600,000.

She claims she was to receive half of each $8 ticket surcharge, but because sales went to an outside ticketing company, she could not confirm the deficit.

Pemberton told the Daily Sound it was “obvious and painstakingly clear” that the 2008 festival lost money.
“Bank accounts don’t lie,” he said.

“I don’t understand what he means by that,” Scafide said. “As mentioned in the complaint, Ms. Kane has asked for an accounting, to which she’s entitled to under California law. And the numbers they’ve provided were not complete and from the documents they provided was not a full accounting.”

Robert Montgomery, a principal of Twiin Productions, is also named in the lawsuit.