Promoter Andrew McManus claims bankrupt mogul Mark Spillane caused $6m chaos for Pandemonium festival
The financial woes that threw a popular rock festival into chaos can be revealed amid a war of words between promoter Andrew McManus and twice-bankrupt mogul Mark Spillane.
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Australian promoter Andrew McManus claims he is $6m out of pocket after agreeing to stage the troubled Pandemonium music festival with bankrupt entertainment industry figure Mark Spillane.
McManus said he was planning legal action in New York against Audient Capital, a Cayman Islands company whose executives include Spillane, his wife Kristie and their LA-based business partner, RJ Bucaria.
It comes after a US judge ordered Audient Capital to pay US$16.7m ($25m) to Stephen Spielberg’s production company Amblin Entertainment over a failed movie finance deal.
McManus claims he is owed $6m under an agreement to set up a new concert company, Apex Entertainment, with Cayman Islands-based Audient.
Spillane and his partners have left a trail of financial devastation in Australian and American entertainment circles via promises Audient, which claims to run an $US1.2bn ($1.8bn) investment fund, would back their businesses.
Their targets, including VanFest operator Matt Clifton, allegedly continued running their businesses – and run up costs – on the basis that investment funds were coming, but they never did.
Bucaria and Spillane vigorously deny all the allegations against them.
“Andrew’s claims are absolutely false across the board,” Bucaria said.
“Andrew has been trying to find the person to blame.”
He said other deals that Audient considered fell over after additional due diligence, which he acknowledged annoyed some of the people they dealt with.
“But it doesn’t mean that we’re sitting out here purposely trying to destroy people’s lives.
“We have better things to do.”
McManus claims Spillane and his partners approached him about setting up a new company in March 2023 and would buy 25 per cent of Apex for about $5 million.
On May 29, he wrote to Buccaria’s US lawyer alleging a breach of the investment agreement with Audient.
In a separate letter of demand sent to the Spillanes on June 4, McManus alleges he is owed almost $63,000 he forked out for legal fees, flights and sponsorship activity.
McManus also claims Spillane failed to tell him he was bankrupt (for a second time) when McManus loaned him $5000 to pay his rent.
The long-time promoter, who has toured Aeromsith, KISS, Smashing Pumpkins and The Corrs, said he has taken out a second mortgage on his home to pay creditors and fans awaiting refunds from the trouble-plagued Pandemonium.
Pandemonium went ahead in April but was scaled down, with venue changes and fewer artists after acts including Placebo and Deep Purple pulled out. Blondie and Alice Cooper headlined the slimmed-down line-up.
“Their sales pitch was we want to buy you and your connections and your networking and all the relationships you’ve got. Hence, we want you to set up a new entity. And so I parked One World Entertainment, which I’ve had going for 12 years, and we went ahead and set up Apex Entertainment,” McManus said.
The first tour under the Apex banner was The Corrs in October and November last year.
“So I funded all the ancillary marketing and the first 10 per cent of the band’s (fees) and all the rest out of my pocket and (was) waiting for them to deliver the contract to help me pay the balance of the artist fees,” McManus said.
“The tour went on sale and it pretty much sold out, $10 million worth of tickets, so it was a win-win. Meanwhile I get an email from Spillane saying they had issues with this and that and wouldn’t have access to the funds until January 12, 2024.”
McManus said that instead of advancing the investment funds after months of “promises and guarantees and selling hope”, the Audient team introduced McManus to BondIt Media Capital to secure more than $5 million of financing to stage Pandemonium – a loan that came with a $900,000 interest bill.
There is no suggestion BondIt Media Capital has done anything wrong.
McManus claims Audient promised not only to cover the loan as their 25 per cent buy-in to Apex but also the interest and pay the promoter $6 million when their funds became available.
The contract for the buy-in deal was to settle on February 9 so McManus proceeded with his plans for Pandemonium “thinking I’ve got $6 million coming in.”
“But it didn’t come. And every day, every week, there was more bullshit. If you read the Spielberg arbitration, the same raves they gave them, they gave me, nearly verbatim.”
n the Spielberg case, an arbitrator found that Mr Bucaria repeatedly promised for months that millions to fund horror flop The Last Voyage of The Demeter would be coming soon, but Audient never paid.
Audient’s Los Angeles-based lawyer, Randy Mendelsohn, said negotiations with Amblin continued.
“We expect to close and pay shortly,” he said.
McManus said all of his profits from The Corrs tour plus borrowings from family and friends have now gone towards settling some of his Pandemonium debt. A new funding deal currently in negotiation out of the US will allow him to put on tours but he estimates it will take him three years to get back on his feet.
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Originally published as Promoter Andrew McManus claims bankrupt mogul Mark Spillane caused $6m chaos for Pandemonium festival
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