Attendance Records Set at County Amphitheaters

The outdoor concert season that ended last weekend brought record attendance for both Pacific Amphitheatre and Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre, executives for the competing promoters who book them said.

In the heated battle for concert crowds that the two venues have waged over the past 5 years, Pacific Amphitheatre led in number of shows, 54 to 45, while Irvine Meadows claimed a lead in attendance.

Pacific Amphitheatre attracted 410,000 customers in 1988, according to figures released by the Nederlander Organization, which operates the Costa Mesa venue. That topped the previous record of about 350,000 in 1984, said Alex Hodges, vice president of Nederlander Concerts. It also represented a substantial comeback from 1987, when total attendance at the Pacific was 300,000 in 38 dates.

Avalon Attractions, the concert promoter that books Irvine Meadows, does not release confirmed totals for its season, Vice President Steve Rennie said. But Rennie estimated 1988 attendance at more than 500,000 for the amphitheater’s 45 shows.

(Irvine Meadows’ attendance totaled about 430,000 for 39 dates for which figures were available. That includes 315,000 for the 28 Irvine Meadows shows that Avalon reported to the trade publication Amusement Business; an additional 75,000 for three sellout dates by Michael Jackson and two more by John Cougar Mellencamp; attendance of 35,000 for five concerts by the Pacific Symphony, and about 5,000 reported attendance at a daylong blues festival.)

Listening to Rennie and Hodges talk about the competition between their respective venues is a lot like listening to McDonald’s take on Burger King or Coca Cola wage an ad campaign against Pepsi. What you get are two separate definitions of what constitutes a first-rate product.

In Rennie’s view, home runs are what counts, and Irvine Meadows was the slugger of the 1988 Orange County concert season, bringing in the hottest shows and racking up the most sellouts.

“We don’t book shows just for the sake of booking ‘em,” Rennie said. “Number of nights is not the be all and end all. I’d rather sell Cadillacs than Volkswagens. We had a very solid season, and 17 (of the dates) were stone-cold sellouts. That’s a pretty high percentage in this business.”

In Hodges’ view, greatness lies in being comprehensive--not a surprising argument, considering that Pacific Amphitheatre featured 49 separate headlining acts, contrasted with 29 (not including the Pacific Symphony dates) at Irvine Meadows, which put more emphasis on two- and three-night engagements.

An amphitheater season “doesn’t become a part of the social atmosphere in the community when you don’t have a lot of shows,” Hodges said.

The Pacific’s booking philosophy brought many acts to Orange County that fans otherwise might not have seen, he said, and it gives acts that don’t figure to sell out the amphitheater a chance to build a following.

“It raises my dander just a little bit,” Hodges said of Rennie’s Cadillacs-to-Volkswagens comparison. “I don’t think we had anything but high quality.” He said that at least 12 shows at the 18,764-capacity Pacific had outdrawn anything at the 15,000-capacity Irvine Meadows (much of the Pacific’s size advantage is on its huge lawn. In terms of actual seats, Irvine Meadows has the advantage, 10,418 to about 8,500).

Hodges also bristled at two big shows that got away: Michael Jackson and George Michael, each of whom played three-night engagements at Irvine Meadows that were almost instant sellouts. He contended that Nederlander was unfairly shut out of the bidding on both acts.

“The more polite, diplomatic answer is that (Avalon) had some relationship (with the acts) and they got the shows,” Hodges said. “But neither of these cases went down where there was a dialogue, where there was normal, competitive (bidding). I’m not pleased with it.”

Rennie said Avalon was able to win those dates because it is a Southern California outfit that deals strictly in promoting concerts and can offer a more personalized approach than Nederlander, a large national entertainment network that manages theaters as well as promotes shows.

Both sides agreed that the Pacific Amphitheatre’s ongoing noise dispute with some of its residential neighbors did not affect the competition for concert bookings. “It has not been an issue that has affected our business or (stopped acts from) having total control of their own show,” Hodges said.

The amphitheater is looking into building sound barriers as a possible solution to the problem, Hodges added, but he couldn’t say whether they would be in place in time for next season. Meanwhile, the noise question remains the subject of an ongoing lawsuit that remains the wild card in what otherwise is a relatively even competitive balance.

“If (the courts) were to put some sort of (sound) restriction on it, that would change things drastically,” Rennie said.