There’s a good case study on how Live Nation operates stemming from a dispute the company had with the city of Mountain View, California.

Mountain View is on the peninsula south of San Francisco; it’s the home of the Shoreline Amphitheatre, which was built under arrangement with Bill Graham, back in the day.

Graham died in 1991 … Bill Graham Presents was eventually bought out by SFX …. SFX was bought out by Clear Channel. Live Nation is the name given to the corporate spin-off of Clear Channel’s concert arm.

Anyway, after the buyouts, Clear Channel had an arrangement under which the city was paid a percentage of its revenues from Shoreline. In the early 2000s, the city began to suspect that Shoreline was underreporting its income; a subsequent audit found that Clear Channel was hiding roughly $10 million a year.

As was its nature, Clear Channel blustered denials and fought back; after several years of wrangling, the company played chicken with the city until just days before a long-delayed trial scheduled for May 2006 … and then, humiliatingly, had to settle.

According to the San Jose Mercury News, the company (by then called Live Nation) would up being well spanked. It had to pay $10 million in restitution—and got its annual fees increased by more than $1 million a year, more than double what it was paying before. The city also shaved ten years off the company’s long-term lease on the property and took away a parking lot for its own development.

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Previously in Hitsville:
Will the Live Nation/Ticketmaster merger mean higher concert prices?
Another suit against Ticketmaster
Constantly updated: The Ticketmaster-Live-Nation unholy-matrimony news round-up!
Five arguments against the Live Nation/Ticketmaster merger
Irving Azoff kicks it old school
The music industry’s Putin
Bad merger coverage
WWBD (What would Bono do?)
Billboard’s analysis of the Ticketmaster/Live Nation merger
Springsteen and Landau bash Ticketmaster and Live Nation!
P.S. on Ticketmaster: A case study, starring Bruce Springsteen
Why the potential Live Nation-Ticketmaster merger is a very bad idea
Is Ticketmaster trying to muddle the fees issue?
The Azoff-Ticketmaster deal: Bad news for concert-goers—and the music industry
Why you so seldom read about obscene Ticketmaster-style ticketing charges