The promoter who put on the most successful show so far at Fulton County's Wolf Creek Amphitheater says the county shortchanged him and he won't return unless the facility is put under private management.
Leo Bennett, president of Charlotte, N.C.-based Variety Entertainment, says about 150 VIP tickets are unaccounted for from the two-day Funk Fest in May, a claim the county disputes. He had considered bringing Funk Fest back to Wolf Creek next year, Bennett said, but will only do that if the amphitheater is run privately, rather than by the Fulton Arts and Culture Department.
At least three county commissioners have expressed a desire to seek a private operator.
The fledgling performance venue has cost taxpayers countywide almost $7 million to build, equip and operate. Funk Fest, with its nearly sold-out New Edition concert, raised hopes that the amphitheater could gain a foothold in metro Atlanta's crowded, cutthroat suburban stage market.
Bennett says the county owes him roughly $26,000 but it says a slew of VIP seats — at tables in front of the stage — went unsold. Bennett says he has photos proving people sat in those seats during both concerts, and a Ticketmaster audit shows the tickets as being sold.
Fulton disagrees. County Manager Zachary Williams told Bennett in a letter that the county still has those tickets, and he can have them back if he wants.
Bennett said that after selling about 170 VIP tickets himself, he returned about 150 to the Wolf Creek box office, which was supposed to put them back up for sale.
"The county is in possession of the unused tickets," spokeswoman Ericka Davis said in an e-mail, "and disputes any assumptions that tickets were improperly allocated."
After Bennett protested, Fulton checked its records and agreed to send him $6,759 for 57 box office ticket sales. South Fulton Commissioner Bill Edwards, the amphitheater's top champion, said Bennett won't get "one red nickel more.
"I'm not going to fight him in the (newspaper)" Edwards said. "We have paid our bills. That's all there is to say."
Bennett said, "The sad thing about it" is, "I really like this venue. It has a lot of potential."
What would have been Wolf Creek's second offering of the year, a June show headlined by R&B singer Angie Stone, was later canceled because it only sold 215 tickets for the 5,400-capacity facility. More than 1,600 tickets have been sold for a jazz festival coming up on Saturday.
"You know what?" Edwards said, citing the amphitheater's growing concert lineup. "We don't want him back."
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