It looks like Wagga’s chances of seeing international nostalgia acts have dried up.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Last year, concert promoter Steve Scerri told The Daily Advertiser he wanted to bring ZZ Top, Blondie and Melissa Etheridge to Wagga, provided the crowds were big enough when The Beach Boys came to town.
But the boys from California failed to draw the 6000-strong audience needed to make it financially worthwhile, with only about 2500 turning up on the Saturday night, which is believed to have contributed to the collapse of the company behind the tour.
Nostalgia acts have become incredibly popular – who hasn’t seen Kiss or John Farnham on one of their hundreds of “farewell” tours – but they probably still get paid regardless of audience numbers.
Southern Stars Touring, set up last year by Mr Scerri, owes about $700,000 to creditors, including some in Wagga.
The liquidation has left local businesses owed more than $19,000, not including the more than $15,000 owed to Hit FM and Triple M owners Southern Cross Austereo.
Further afield, businesses in Sydney, Brisbane, Canberra, Melbourne and even Hobart are collectively owed hundreds of thousands, including music royalty group APRA and a company called Artist 2 Audience (A2A).
Funnily enough, A2A is “captained” (according to its website), by Mr Scerri, who is described as a “blue flame marketing property and full time entertainment marketing entrepreneur”. A2A’s website also features a section on its promotion of a Beach Boys tour in 2015 and the company was one of the “co-presenters” of the Wagga concert.
Which leaves us wondering why the Southern Stars Touring company was set up before the tour kicked off in 2016 and why it owes an “unknown” amount to A2A.
Even bigger questions surround whether A2A will continue to bring acts like The Beach Boys to Australia while Wagga creditors try to recover their lost income.
It’s terrible to hear the disastrous Beach Boys washout and triumphant return in February may mean some of our local businesses will get hung out to dry.
For those who were there on that fateful Saturday night in February, fleeing the field as the heavens opened, it was hard to imagine things could get any worse for Wagga’s biggest concert.
But now it seems there were deeper problems with the tour than Wagga’s wild weather.