PAGEANT LEASE : TENTATIVE PACT SET ON IRVINE BOWL

Negotiators for the Laguna Beach City Council and the organization that operates the annual Pageant of the Masters have reached tentative agreement on a 15-year lease for the Irvine Bowl tableaux and exhibition complex, officials of both groups said Friday.

The proposed lease would end a three-year stalemate over reducing the city’s share of the gate receipts. The city owns the six-acre Laguna Canyon site that has been the home of the pageant and Festival of Arts exhibition since 1941.

The City Council and festival board of directors must still approve the proposed lease.

A year ago, after negotiations had ground to a halt, festival board officials threatened to “shut down” by 1990--when the old lease expires--if a satisfactory agreement couldn’t be reached. However, after the City Council held a hearing on the issue, the two sides resumed negotiations in May.

The tentative lease proposes to cut the city’s annual share of gate receipts from 17.5% to 13.7%. The festival’s negotiators had been pressing for a cut to 10%.

Last year, the festival board paid $388,000 to the city, mostly from the gate receipts. Under the proposed agreement, the city would get at least $325,000 from the festival board. The city uses most of its money to pay off Main Beach redevelopment bonds.

Festival board officials have argued that a cut in the city’s share was necessary to enable the festival to keep up with rising maintenance costs and to speed up renovations to the 2,662-seat, 33-year-old Irvine Bowl.

“We’re pleased with the (tentative) accord. It’s something our board can live with comfortably,” said festival spokeswoman Sally Reeve. The proposed lease was approved “in principle” by the festival board Friday morning, Reeve said.

Councilwoman Martha Collison, a member of the city’s negotiating team, said Friday that the only unsettled issue is the extent and cost of liability insurance requirements. “Other than that, it looks just fine to us. Basically, we consider it a very good agreement as it now stands,” she said.

The city team, which also includes Mayor Neil Fitzpatrick, will submit the proposed lease to the full council April 7.

This year’s Pageant of the Masters tableaux show and Festival of Arts exhibition will be held July 10 through Aug. 30. This year’s overall operating budget is $2.8 million, including $732,000 to stage the pageant. The tableaux show, which uses 400 on-stage and backstage volunteers, has been a sellout for the past 20 summers.

Last May, festival officials said the festival-pageant needed to embark immediately on a $3-million facilities renovation. But, they claimed, the project was being delayed in large part by the deadlocked lease talks. They also said the continued “high rent” was resulting in cutbacks to the festival’s annual grants to local cultural organizations.

The current lease, an 18-year pact, is scheduled to expire in 1990.