AEG in Jackson memorial costs row (From Hampshire Chronicle)

AEG in Jackson memorial costs row

3:26am Friday 10th July 2009 in National Entertainment News © Press Association 2011

A Los Angeles city councillor has called on Michael Jackson's concert promoter to pay some of the estimated £880,000 cost of policing the late pop star's memorial service at the city's Staples Centre.

Dennis Zine said the city's taxpayers were "getting ripped off" because AEG, which is also the owner-operator of the Staples Centre, profited by charging the media up to £31,200 to use risers outside the venue.

But AEG Live's president Tim Leiweke said Mr Zine was out of line for asking the organisation to pay for policing because it had helped solicit donors for the Los Angeles Lakers' NBA victory parade last month.

AEG Live said it paid for Tuesday's memorial itself, along with the Jackson estate, but did not mention the cost of crowd control.

The parade and memorial both resulted in extraordinary costs to Los Angeles at a time when it is in debt for half a billion dollars and facing employee redundancies.

The cost of city services for the Lakers' parade was about £630,000. Donors covered about £531,000 of that sum. The Lakers and AEG spent another £630,000 to produce the parade and rally at the Memorial Coliseum.