Irvine Meadows Wins 1990 Booking War : Competition: But take away the symphony series, free concerts and an outside event, the Orange County concert duel ended in a tie.

Cigarettes and the symphonies provided the margin of difference that made Irvine Meadows the busier of Orange County’s two large outdoor concert amphitheaters in 1990.

Irvine Meadows hosted 42 concerts during a long outdoor season that began March 3 with a Tom Petty concert at the Pacific Amphitheatre and ends tonight with a show by Basia, also at the Pacific. That show will bring the Pacific’s final concert tally for the year to 30. Each amphitheater staged 36 concerts in 1989.

But take away the Pacific Symphony’s five-concert summer residency at Irvine Meadows, the series of six free pop concerts sponsored by Parliament cigarettes and one Christian rock concert put on by an outside promoter, and Irvine Meadows and the Pacific finished in a dead heat for 1990 with 30 paid, in-house pop promotions each.

Overall, executives for both amphitheaters said, it was not a strong year, but it did bring gains over the slack season of 1989.

Total 1990 attendance at Irvine Meadows was “a click over 400,000,” up from about 360,000 in 1989, said Robert Geddes, the amphitheater’s managing partner. Alex Hodges, vice president in charge of West Coast concerts for the Nederlander Organization, which operates the Pacific, said attendance totaled about 325,000 this year, an improvement over the announced 1989 total of 300,000.

“It was lean year for everybody, but we feel confident we got our share,” said Geddes.

“We had fewer shows than the year before, but our gross sales were up,” noted Hodges. He said attendance averaged about 10,800 fans per concert. “I was real pleased with that figure,” he said.

Irvine Meadows hosted three pop acts that were strong enough draws to play multiple-night stands. Whitesnake and Phil Collins played two nights each, while Oingo Boingo played three consecutive nights. At the Pacific, Janet Jackson and New Kids on the Block both had two-night stands. Rush also headlined twice in Orange County, playing the Pacific in April, then returning in June to play Irvine Meadows.

The two amphitheaters have waged high-stakes bidding wars to lure pop acts away from each other ever since 1983, when the 18,765-capacity Pacific opened in Costa Mesa to challenge the 15,000-capacity Irvine Meadows.

Both sides say back-and-forth auctions for performers’ services have eroded profits or led to losses. This year, Hodges said, the Pacific tried limit the bidding.

“Maybe we could have had a few more shows if we’d opened the checkbook,” he said. “But there’s no point in running a show if you’re going to lose money. We’re being aggressive, but we’re trying to keep our head on our shoulders.”

Geddes, however, said that he noticed no change in his competitor’s tactics.

“We weren’t paying lesser guarantees. We were paying (as much) or more than we ever did before” because of aggressive counter-bidding by the Pacific, he said.

The Pacific management’s most aggressive bid of the season came in the spring, when it tried to acquire a majority share of the stock in Irvine Meadows, a move that would have ended the amphitheaters’ competition. But antitrust lawyers from the U.S. Justice Department blocked the buyout attempt, ruling that it would create an illegal monopoly in the Orange County concert market. Geddes, who had fought to prevent the merger, then brought record industry mogul Irving Azoff into the Irvine Meadows partnership, which also includes developer Donald M. Koll.

Pacific officials were more pleased with the outcome of a longstanding lawsuit in which Costa Mesa neighbors tried to restrict the amphitheater’s sound output. Although the case ended with the establishment of noise guidelines, they call for levels that Pacific officials say they can meet without limiting rock bands’ freedom to play at their usual concert volumes.

The outlook for 1991 is competition as usual, Hodges and Geddes said.

“Both venues will do about 40 (pop concerts) each next year,” Hodges predicted. “There’ll be some good acts out.”

“It should be a little stronger next year,” Geddes agreed. “Bigger names, and more of them.”