Female country artist and businesswoman Rae Solomon has filed a lawsuit against Live Nation, alleging the event-promotion company stole her idea for an all-female concert series that it’s now using for its own music festival in Chicago scheduled for this June.
Solomon’s lawsuit, filed in the Davidson County, TN circuit court, claims that Live Nation executives intentionally misrepresented their continued interest in her festival during months-long negotiations so that they could create, organize, and promote their own version of the festival. The CEO of Nashville-based East Hallows LLC is seeking compensatory damages, attorney’s fees and related costs estimated to total approximately $25 million, and additional unspecified punitive damages.
Solomon first engaged with Live Nation in May 2018 when she applied to the company’s Women Nation Fund, which the promotion company created as an incubator to develop and finance female-owned concert tours and other live-event businesses.
Solomon presented her completed business plan for an all-female country festival in Chicago called Zenitheve – which included an artist lineup, timeline, booked vendors, and potential sponsors – to Live Nation, whose executives initially lauded her project. After a series of phone conversations and email exchanges in which the executives expressed support and requested details, they abruptly cut off discussion with her in October 2018.
A month later, Live Nation announced the launch of the Chicago-based LakeShake festival, which features an artist lineup on its premier day nearly identical to Solomon’s.
“When a powerful corporation like Live Nation announces a fund to support women in business and actually tells you they want to invest in your business, it’s nothing short of a dream come true,” said Solomon. “I never imagined that they would turn around and steal my business plan for their own gain. They claim to be celebrating female artists in country music, but they’re doing so by taking another woman down.”
On several occasions, Live Nation Senior Vice President Michael Wischer told Solomon his company had an interest in partnering with her to produce Zenitheve and that the program was “right down the center of the fairway for what we’re trying to do.”
“It’s too coincidental that Live Nation could come up with the same idea, including the same artists and in the same city just six weeks after our launch date,” says Solomon. “They announced their concert after speaking with me over a period of months and stringing me along as though they were going to co-produce this with me.”
Solomon, whose goal hasn’t changed, says, “I still want to put on this tour. The whole point of Zenitheve is to celebrate female artists and stand together against discrimination in the music industry. What I’d like to see happen is for Live Nation to do what’s right and to also recognize me as a rightful partner on the concert they announced based on my idea and hard work.”
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