Insomniac events sues USC events following payment scandal, teases new festival

Insomniac Events is suing USC Events in the wake of the fallout from last summer's Paradiso festival, the event the two promoters co-produced at the Gorge in Washington.

Months after last summer's event, vendors and employees of the festival began to reveal on social media that they had still not been paid for their services. This has led to Insomniac launching the suit against the company for breach of contact, amongst other issues.

The suit says that either Insomniac or USC could terminate their partnership contract if either party was found in breach. It further claims that Insomniac eventually gave USC over $2 million which the Seattle-based company could not account for when asked for invoices and financial information following the festival. Insomniac was forced to cover payments of $215,055 to one artist agency, Paradigm, and $638,650 to another agency, UTA, for artists who had not been paid for their time. Money was also paid out to vendors.

Despite all of this, USC has continued to share social media updates teasing Paradiso 2020 via its Facebook page. Insomniac hopes that if it wins the lawsuit, USC will no longer legally be able to use Paradiso branding, nor its associated social media accounts. It also hopes to stop USC from being able to book artists and take any other action to promote the festival. Insomniac is also seeking financial damages for, as the lawsuit claims, having to bail out USC.

The suit further states that Insomniac hopes to ban USC from involvement in Paradiso as the former hopes to put on another event at the Gorge this summer. There are no further details yet available of what shape that event might take. 

You can take a look at the full terms of the lawsuit here.