Adelaide concert promoter Phil Rankine’s company Space Touring loses Federal Court battle over debt demand

Phil Rankine — the local concert promoter who is bringing Elton John to Adelaide — could have one of his companies wound up after losing a legal battle with a prominent hotelier.

Music promoter Phil Rankine with promotional posters for some of the major acts he has brought to Adelaide. Picture: Bianca De Marchi

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The promoter behind the upcoming Elton John concerts in Adelaide faces the possibility of one of his companies being wound up after losing a court battle with a financier this week.

Phil Rankine — through his companies such as Space Events — has put on shows by some of the largest acts to visit Adelaide in recent years, including Bon Jovi, Shania Twain and Florence + the Machine.

But this week his company, Space Touring, failed in a Federal Court bid to have a “statutory demand for payment of debt” from Adelaide company Duxton Entertainment set aside.

A statutory demand for debt is a legal device used to require payment for a debt which, if not satisfied or set aside, can after 21 days be used as a trigger to start winding-up proceedings.

The size of the debt is unclear. Duxton refused to comment, while Mr Rankine — a former winner of reality TV show The Block — has not returned a number of phone calls from The Advertiser this week.

Duxton Entertainment is part of a group of companies headed by commodities trader Ed Peter, who operates two ASX-listed companies out of Stirling.

Ed Peter of Duxton Entertainment.

Mr Peter also owns Kaesler winery, and the Uraidla and Crafers hotels — he too did not return multiple phone calls from The Advertiser.

The Federal Court heard this week that Duxton had been acting as financier for shows such as Supertramp and The Prodigy, with Duxton putting up an advance to finance shows, and both companies sharing the profits, or losses, from each event.

The court was told the Prodigy concert, held at the Adelaide Entertainment Centre in January, involved a $727,500 advance but ended up making a loss.

While it is unclear whether this is the debt under dispute, and what that amount is, the Federal Court this week dismissed Space Touring’s bid to have the statutory demand, served on March 20, set aside. Space Touring was also ordered to pay Duxton’s costs.

ASIC documents show Mr Rankine is a director of six companies, all a variation on the Space theme, including Space Touring, Space Events, Space Entertainment, and Space Production Company.

Space Events — not Space Touring which is involved in the debt dispute — appears to be the company promoting the Elton John tour, which is coming to Adelaide in December. The relevant website is registered to that company.

Space Events was embroiled in a controversy earlier this year, over its staging of the Florence + the Machine concert.

A large number of ticketholders, who had paid extra for premium general admission tickets for standing areas closest to the stage, found they could not access the area after security guards did not restrict access to premium ticketholders only.

The Space Events Facebook page denied this was what happened.

“This show was the largest general admission event that we have run at the venue and as such, we took additional precautions with patron safety and installed a D-barrier at the front of the GA, this has regrettably caused some confusion and frustrations for our patrons and we are disappointed that this has impacted their enjoyment of an otherwise incredible concert event,’’ the post says.

The company did not offer refunds for premium ticketholders.

There are currently 171 comments on that Facebook post, with the vast majority negative.

“You sold premium general admission tickets and did not provide premium general admission,’’ one comment reads.

“The right thing to do is to admit you provided a full general admission event and refund the premium ticket holders the difference in ticket price they paid that everyone else didn’t.’’

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