By Stephen Centanni and Rob Holbert Lagniappe staff While the cancellation of Zewtopia II deflated many a local music lover, the failure of the festival that was expected to draw thousands and act as a springtime bookend to BayFest exposed an emerging pattern that has many in the Port City music scene concerned. An abrupt cancellation announcement April 13 by WZEW 92.1-FM, the radio station co-sponsoring the event, left local music lovers cold. They were hoping to hear the trenchant sound of Warren Haynes’ voice with his band Gov’t Mule as well as the bluesy vocals of Susan Tedeschi or some of the other headliners like Blue October, Drive-By Truckers, The Subdudes, Oteil and the Peacemakers, Little Feat and the blind Boys of Alabama at the Greater Gulf State Fairgrounds April 20 & 21. Many local music fans expressed confusion and surprise the event had been so suddenly cancelled, especially considering the ZEW’s sterling reputation for bringing live music to the area. But others who have been watching the music scene for months weren’t so surprised, as the promoter for Zewtopia II was to be SoundStage Live, a company that lately seems to be experiencing more misses than hits. The cancellation led to a flurry of finger pointing between the ZEW and Soundstage owner Frank Giglio, with the latter trying to distance himself from the failure in two on-line publications by saying he was not responsible for paying the bands.

The blame game When it was originally announced on WZEW, WZEW and WNSP operations manager Tim Camp cited the reason for cancellation as a "breakdown in communication" between the promoter Frank Giglio of SoundStage Live and the various booking agencies involved. "The situation was beyond our power to rectify," Camp said on-air. However, Giglio told Lagniappe April 13 there was no miscommunication, adding that the show was cancelled strictly because of poor ticket sales. He said only 562 tickets had been presold. "There was only one reason," Giglio said, "poor ticket sales." In an interview after the announcement, Camp said Giglio had not paid the deposits for the bands, but had given his word they would receive the money by April 16. Camp said several of the booking agencies involved with the show were satisfied with the arrangement, but one agency, Monterey International, balked and pulled its bands from the festival. Camp said that prompted him to cancel the event. "I made the decision to pull it since we couldn’t deliver what we said we would deliver," Camp said. He said the agency would have pulled bands Blue October, Susan Tedeschi and Little Feat. WZEW has heavily promoted Zewtopia II as a partner in the event over the past several weeks. Camp said ticket sales were indeed slow and partly to blame for the cancellation. Giglio’s SoundStage Live promoted last year’s inaugural Zewtopia, a one-day event at the Fairgrounds that featured Cracker, Dr. John, Ivan Neville’s Dumpstaphunk, Mike Doughty, among others and drew about 3,000 people. So expectations for Zewtopia II were high. By April 17, the news of Zewtopia had made it onto the front page of Pollstar (an online nerve center of live music events), and Giglio’s relationship with the event was somewhat clouded. Several unnamed booking agents involved with Zewtopia had contacted them on the situation and confirmed that they pulled out "after waiting for the artist binders that never came." The new twist was that Pollstar stated that it was "not clear who the ‘promoter" was for the radio-sponsored event, other than the radio station." Pollstar also reported that Giglio had stated he was not the promoter for the event, but acted as a liaison between the agents and the station. He claimed the responsibility was in the hands of WZEW. However, Camp adamantly disputed this claim. "My only comment to that is the way it is," explains Camp. "There’s a gross inaccuracy there from the standpoint that all the contracts between the agents were signed by SoundStage Live not 92 ZEW. If he was a go-between, how come 92 ZEW didn’t sign any contracts?" When asked where Pollstar possibly got the information for their story, Camp had his own deductions. "I’m sure Frank told them that," says Camp. "I would think. I don’t know where they would get that." Camp went on to say WZEW had a specific deal with SoundStage Live that did not involved interacting with booking agents on the business level. The radio station’s solitary role in this festival was only to promote the event and provide $68,000 in advertisements. Camp further proves their case claiming that SoundStage Live also took on a contract with one of Zewtopia’s primary sponsor. "If you check with Budweiser, they’ll tell you that their deal was with SoundStage Live not 92 ZEW," Camp. Says. The Pollstar story was pulled just a few hours after Lagniappe contacted them to ask about sourcing for the story. Budweiser could not be reached for comment on this story. A second story appeared on Encore, a Web site devoted to the performance industry, April 19, quoting Monterey International agent Gerry Buck saying Giglio simply had never come up with the money for the bands. "Frank Giglio of Soundstage Live, who acted as producer of Zewtopia, allowed the two-day festival to advertise and sell tickets without having the funds to secure the talent as signed and contracted. After months of attempts by my company to secure the required deposits, the artists finally had no other option but to exercise their right to cancel. We and our clients could no longer abide the continued misleading of the fans and ticket holders," Buck said in the Encore story. The story also quotes Giglio as saying he had no responsibility for promoting Zewtopia II. All of this might be written off as a simple misunderstanding if Giglio and his company were not building a growing reputation in Mobile for booking concerts that never take place. An April 7 SoundStage Live show that was to feature Blue Oyster Cult and Foghat at the Mobile Civic Center was cancelled, reportedly due to poor ticket sales, as was an April 26 show by Eric Burdon and the Animals. An appearance by guitarist Leo Kottke has also been scratched. Kottke’s manager has reportedly taken issue with attempting to reschedule and move the show without approval.

Troubled past When SoundStage Live first began promoting in the Port City, an anonymous e-mail circulated with a link to a 2004 St. Petersburg Times story outlining Giglio’s checkered past, which includes numerous arrests and stint in state prison in Florida. The story says Giglio, " has been arrested two dozen times since 1993, mostly for crimes involving misappropriation of money. He has been fingerprinted for worthless checks, grand theft, forgery and credit card fraud in courtrooms from Pinellas to Hillsborough to Orange County, where judges ordered him to pay restitution in the tens of thousands of dollars." The Times story, which can be found at http://www.sptimes.com/2004/03/31/Hillsborough/BBQfest_coordinator_h.shtml, didn’t seem to scare off too many folks, though. Many people involved in Mobile’s music scene were willing to overlook Giglio’s past in light of some early successes by SoundStage Live. Venues such as the Civic Center, The Temple, the Saenger Theater, Soul Kitchen and many others all welcomed Giglio in. Some of those no longer work with him. For instance, the management of The Temple Downtown, where Giglio promoted and then canceled a Blind Boys of Alabama show, still question Giglio’s business methods. "He’s not known for getting into legal contracts prior to events just to insure that when the event is over with or things are getting ready to be settled up, there’s no legal binding that can hold him to anything if things don’t go his way," says Temple manager Rodney Rees. Giglio set up several events at The Temple and was criticized by Rees for only using one mode of advertising that was inexpensive or at no cost. With poor advertising came lackluster turnouts. "With poor promotion, he just didn’t get the attendance that he would have liked," says Rees. When the turnouts were poor, Giglio would brainstorm ways to get other funds involved with the show (such as the bar) in order to recuperate his losses. "We went above and beyond as far as accommodating him on various things with the door and stuff as far as him having an opportunity to make money on these ventures just for our sake, from our standpoint to promote more activity at The Temple, which is one of the biggest goals," says Rees. "It’s to show everyone in Mobile that we have a venue that is attractive for all sorts of events with everything from wedding receptions to parties to private parties to concerts. So, it benefited us to be accommodating to him and get exposure out of it, yet he basically took advantage of our generous offers." Rees said Giglio continued to advertise events at The Temple such as Tracy Lawrence, Leo Kotke and the Blind Boys of Alabama without ever paying any deposits to the venue. "He was contacted and told that it would be rented if something came up," says Rees. "We weren’t comfortable." Rees said doing business this way is particularly tough on the Mobile market, which has had a bad reputation in the music business going back to the civic center scandals of the ‘70s and ‘80s. "We at the Temple find it a great loss for the entertainment and music community of Mobile that things like this occur when so many people in entertainment business downtown are working hard to build up entertainment business in Mobile," says Rees. "Mobile as a whole gets bad publicity from agents with this stuff going on. From them to the Mobile Business Alliance, they all hurt as a result of this." WZEW’s Camp reinforced the image of Giglio as someone who doesn’t like contracts. While Camp did not say whether WZEW would continue using SoundStage Live for promotions, he did say a lesson had been learned. "I can say the one thing I have learned from this is I will not work with any promoter on a hand-shake basis again," Camp said.