Jennifer Miller from The Whistler Question has issued the following report:

The concert promoter who’s being sued by the representatives of glam-rock band KISS said this week he doesn’t understand how he can be sued for breach of contract when he says a contract was never signed for the ill-fated September concert in Whistler, which was cancelled just 12 days before its scheduled date.

"We cancelled this concert because of lack of contracts. We could not come to an agreement on the content of the contract," said Dennis MacDonald, president of Vancouver-based Big Mountain Concert Company (BMCC). "We find it very interesting that someone has accused us of being in breach of a contract that never existed." MacDonald also clarified that it’s the band’s management and touring agents that are suing Big Mountain and MacDonald himself — not the members of KISS.

A statement of claim filed in B.C. Supreme Court on Nov. 28 by three separate Los Angeles-based companies seeks the $900,000 U.S. they allege was agreed to be paid for the 90-minute performance scheduled for Sept. 15, plus general damages and costs. The suit claims that the concert was cancelled by MacDonald and/or BMCC and the plaintiffs were willing and able to live up to their part of the agreement, including performing at the concert.

As a result of the cancellation, "the plaintiffs have suffered and will continue to suffer losses, injury and damages, including… injury to their respective reputations and loss of goodwill in their respective businesses, trades and professions," the suit reads.

The suit claims a contract was made partly orally, partly in writing and partly by conduct and "it was understood and agreed by all the parties that the contract was final and binding."

But MacDonald told The Question on Monday (Dec. 10) that BMCC representatives never signed the contract because they weren’t in agreement with it. "It’s abundantly clear that we disagreed with the contract," he said.

An original deal was drafted in mid-July but weeks kept slipping by without the details getting nailed down, MacDonald said. The band’s representatives kept changing details such as technical and support requirements for the show, he said.

"There were changes that kept coming in in the last couple of weeks that kept adding to what our expenses would be," MacDonald said. "It gets to the stage where you say you’re going to lose money on this if we proceed and these people continue to add on costs."

When the concert was cancelled on Sept. 3, BMCC reps cited "logistical problems" as the reason it was called off. MacDonald said BMCC held out as long as it could without final details and in the end the added costs became "completely prohibitive." He said thousands of tickets were refunded.

Breton Murphy, manager of corporate communications for Tourism Whistler, said none of the local organizations that worked to facilitate the concert is involved in the lawsuit, and to his knowledge nobody from TW has been contacted about the dispute.

(Thanks Kissasylum.com)