Council Drops New Operator of Burbank Amphitheater

The Burbank City Council on Tuesday voted to withdraw from an agreement with a Santa Monica-based entertainment agency that was planning to present concerts at the city-owned Starlight Amphitheatre.

The council backed out after residents of single-family neighborhoods near the theater complained that concerts would generate crowds and traffic that would disrupt their community. The Starlight is in the Verdugo Mountains in northeast Burbank and can only be reached by residential streets.

Michael S. Seemann, president of World Entertainment Services, had planned to stage 12 concerts at the Starlight this summer and 18 next year. City officials said the reversal probably means that no concerts will be presented at the theater this summer.

No Valid Contract

City Atty. Douglas C. Holland said the city never had a valid contract with World Entertainment because the Starlight’s previous operator, Tim Pinch, is still under contract. Although the council said in December that it wanted to terminate Pinch because he had failed to provide “broad and varied” entertainment, it never officially fired him, Holland said.

A hearing is scheduled Tuesday at which the council will consider what to do about Pinch’s contract.

If that contract is terminated, Holland and Richard I. Inga, Burbank’s parks and recreation director, are authorized to renegotiate with World Entertainment to manage the Starlight. Holland said any new agreement would contain restrictions on the number of shows and on the size of crowds at the theater.

Pinch said he is no longer interested in managing the theater as long as the city contracts with World Entertainment, in which he has a financial interest.

The agreement from which the council withdrew allowed World Entertainment to stage an unlimited number of shows and to book any act it liked. The agreement also allowed the firm to sell out the theater, which has a capacity of 6,000 people.

Theater in Kansas

Although World Entertainment had not announced its lineup of acts for the Starlight, the firm booked Whitesnake, Judas Priest, Earth Wind and Fire, and Merle Haggard last year at a theater it operates in Bonner Springs, Kan.

The council said that before any new agreement is approved, a traffic and parking study, an environmental assessment and a public hearing must be conducted.

Neither Seemann nor any other World Entertainment executive attended the meeting.

Questions about Seemann’s financial past arose last week. Court records filed in Los Angeles Superior Court show that he failed to pay salaries and other costs resulting from a 1981 film he was producing that was never made.

The records show that the Directors Guild of America has been trying since 1985 to get Seemann to pay almost $15,000 in salaries, union costs and attorneys’ fees in a case involving the production of “The Killing of Georgie,” a movie that was to be filmed in New York.

Seemann wrote several checks that bounced to the film’s location manager, Mark Indig, according to the documents. He also failed to pay $237,500 owed to the film’s director for at least four years after the movie was canceled, the documents show.

Seemann had pledged to be personally responsible for the financial obligations of the production if the film’s production company did not meet them, according to the documents.