Avalon Attracts an Entertainment Giant

This week’s sale of Avalon Attractions, the Los Angeles concert promoter that also runs Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre, would appear to be a setback for Thomas “Jock” Weaver III, an aspiring entertainment czar from Hickory Valley, Tenn.

Last June, Weaver’s Nashville Country Club Inc. (since renamed TBA Entertainment Corp.) agreed to pay $7 million for 51% of Avalon, which also has interests in amphitheaters in San Bernardino and Ventura counties.

Weaver’s other holdings included a Colorado ski resort and a country music-themed Nashville restaurant. He had ambitious plans for managing artists, booking tours and concerts, producing television shows and hosting conferences--all somehow working together to create a Disney-style “synergy.”

But a far bigger fish in the live entertainment game surfaced this week--Robert Sillerman, whose New York-based SFX Entertainment Inc. has been on a $750-million spending spree over the past year. In one of five transactions announced simultaneously, SFX said it would buy Avalon outright for $27 million.

Weaver said he was too busy talking to his investment bankers to discuss the situation at length. But he pointed out that he had sold his Avalon stake for far more than he paid for it.

“It’s a win-win deal,” he maintained, “great for them and great for us. We earned a huge return on our investment and we’re really just plowing that return back into our expansion.”

E. Scott Reckard covers tourism for The Times. He can be reached at (714) 966-7407 and at scott.reckard@latimes.com