Taylor Swift may have a new heartbreak on the horizon. Texas-based company Front Gate Tickets has hit the singer-songwriter with a $1.8 million lawsuit over an Ottawa concert she was scheduled to headline.
Paid a performance fee in advance of $2.5 million, the crooner was slated to headline the Ottawa, Ontario Capital Hoedown in August 2012, but the event was cancelled just a month before it was set to begin due to higher than expected costs, operating obstacles and the lack of a city event permit.
Find out why the Capital Hoedown was cancelled ottawasun.com/2012/07/09/cap… #ottnews
— Ottawa Sun (@ottawasuncom) July 9, 2012
Front Gate, which sold and then refunded $1.8 million worth of tickets for the event, announced via lawsuit that they planned to try to recoup those costs from Swift herself.
TMZ reported earlier this week that a lawsuit had officially been filed in federal court in New York, but there are serious doubts that Swift will actually have to pony up the dough.
Los Angeles entertainment attorney Michael Ackerman told Yahoo Canada that legally, Front Gate’s beef is with the concert’s promoter, not Swift:
In the boldface headline it seems very black and white: She made 2.5 million dollars, and I got nothing. [But] She did do something—she held the date. That’s a date that she’s not taking other work. There may not be time to rebook.
In her defence, Swift is likely to claim that she had no contract with Front Gate; her deal was with the concert’s organizers. Even if she does end up losing the lawsuit, the singer would still walk away with a profit of $700,000 for the ill-fated country music affair.
This isn’t the first time Swift has been on the receiving end of a contracts dispute — in 2010 she was sued by her former manager Dan Dymtrow for millions in commissions her family had allegedly promised him. That case was thought to have ended in a settlement.