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McCarren Concert Series Canceled After Rift Over Stage Branding

By Serena Dai | July 7, 2015 1:33pm
 A free movie series at McCarren Park won't have concerts beforehand this year, a music promoter said.
A free movie series at McCarren Park won't have concerts beforehand this year, a music promoter said.
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Flickr/Georg Scherlin

WILLIAMSBURG — A prominent local indie music promoter has canceled concerts set to be held before a free McCarren Park movie series after the organizer branded the stage without consulting him, he announced Tuesday.

Todd Patrick has been booking concerts for the SummerScreen series for several years, but this year film series organizer Northside Media took a deal to brand the stage with the Vitamin Water name without first speaking with him, Patrick said in a Facebook post.

He also claimed that Northside — which runs the Northside Festival and Taste Talks — did not offer more money for concert budgets after making the deal.

"We would turn down the branding no matter the money, but certainly if there's money changing hands, the bands should see it," Patrick wrote in his post Tuesday. "We insisted the branding be removed and Northside wasn't able to do it, so we're canceling."

The free series, which has been running since 2006 with live music and vendors, is set to start this year on Wednesday with a screening of "Clueless." A total of six movie screenings are planned for this year.

The event is sponsored by eight brands, including Vitamin Water, MailChimp, Verizon, Netflix and Sixpoint Brewery, according to the website.

Northside Media founder Daniel Stedman did not immediately return request for comment. Patrick did not respond to request for further comment.

Thousands of people go to the event each year, according to Northside.

Patrick, who owns the all-ages Ridgewood venue Trans-Pecos at 915 Wyckoff Ave., is credited with being a major force behind the underground DIY music scene in North Brooklyn. His popular Williamsburg venue 285 Kent closed last year.

"I've had a lot of fun booking bands at Summerscreen for the last several years — it's always a fun social experiment and Northside have been wonderful to work with and tolerant of our sometimes 'out' bookings — but this is simply a situation of our visions for the thing not being in sync," Patrick wrote.