The City of Greater Sudbury will release information about everyone who received advanced access to tickets for the Elton John concert in early 2008, said Doug Nadorozny, Greater Sudbury chief administrative officer.

“We will release the information to the public on June 29.”

The city recently lost a Freedom Of Information ruling by the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario.

Another Sudbury media outlet requested full disclosure over who got special access to tickets to the high profile concert in early March 2008.

Citizens were outraged when they found out that city councillors and arena staff were able to purchase tickets ahead of the general public.

The city released information in the spring of 2008 about how many tickets city councillors and staff were able to buy in advance.

But they withheld information about special access to tickets by several other groups at the request of the promoter, Live Nation.

The categories of information to be released at the end of the month include the tickets set aside for the performer's fan club, those given to the media for promotional purposes and the tickets the performer held himself.

“That is the information we withheld,” said Nadorozny.

He says the city withheld ticket information due to contractual agreements with the promoter, who brought the performer to the city.

“Under the rules of the Freedom of Information Act, when information that we have is actually that of a third party, we are asked to ask that third party if they are OK with us releasing it. In this particular instance, the information that the promoter wished to protect was information that they deemed proprietary and confidential," he said.

"They asserted it would be harmful to their business if that information was released. On the basis of that request from the promoter we withheld that information.”

According to Nadorozny, the tickets are the private property of the promoter, Live Nation.

“One of the conditions of the contract was that the promoter needed to set aside some tickets for their own purposes. We agreed to that. This is standard in the industry. What the promoter wished to protect is the breakdown in the tickets.”

Nadorozny did not think Live Nation would snub the city because of the ruling by the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario.

“We did our due diligence in trying to keep that information out of the public domain. They can't say we did not oblige the wishes of Live Nation. So hopefully they recognize that and it does not affect our ongoing business relationship.”

The City and Live Nation are continuing to hold high profile concerts at the Sudbury Arena, including the upcoming Randy Bachman Burton Cummings concert August 4, he said.

Key to Nadorozny is the protection of the relationship between the city and the private sector in general.

“At the macro level we want all of our third parties that we deal with to feel confident that the information between us is treated with due diligence.”

To fight the request, the city had to seek outside legal advice, said Nadorozny.

More than $30,000 was spent by the city on a combination of lawyers and public relations advice relating to the Elton John situation, he said.

“Part of it relates to a period when our director of communications was not available. We had to have some outside external help. This was before the Freedom of Information request," he said.

"The most recent expenditure was when we retained outside (legal) services related to the information request. We did not feel we had the expertise in-house, both from a commercial entertainment perspective as well as the details of the Freedom of Information Act.”

The city did not put out a request for proposals for these expenditures.

“These things come up very quickly. We have the authority in our bylaws to hire small chunks of outside expertise as needed. That is what we did.”

The city lost the Freedom of Information ruling because the judge said releasing the information was unlikely to cause any harm, said Nadorozny.

“In order to legitimately withhold information, first, it has to be proven that the information was given to us in a confidential manner. In the second test, it has to be deemed to have commercial value. Third it has to be demonstrated that releasing the information could cause harm," he said.

“The Information Privacy Commissioner agreed that the information was to be kept confidential and second that it was commercial information. But they did not agree that harm would result in releasing the information. That case was not strong enough. So it was on the basis of that they ordered the information to be released.”

Live Nation has not officially commented on the ruling, he said.

Nadorozny claimed there was no pressure exerted on the city by anyone who might not want their names disclosed as one of those who received special access to tickets.

“The only pressure we got, and it was not pressure, was the request for information.”

He could not confirm whether provincial or federal politicians received tickets.
“I do not know what the promoter did with their tickets.”

For over a year, there has been a new policy in place where concert tickets are not to be made available in advance to city councillors or staff.

“It dispenses with the former practice of letting arena staff having access to arena tickets ahead of time. There was no policy specifically for council. Now there is a policy. This (advance access to tickets) by city councillors will not be allowed.”

Nadorozny said he did buy tickets to the Elton John concert himself, but he "went online like everybody else."

“I purchased four tickets during the period of chaos, but I decided it was not a good idea for me to be anywhere near the arena. So I gave my tickets away (to family).”

Nadorozny denied rumours there had been a secret communication between city administrators and councillors about possibly setting up the Sudbury Arena as an arms-length, private corporation, as a means of circumventing such information requests.

“That reference was only made in an e-mail, given as an example, on how we could protect the relationship with the promoter in the future if we so desired. It would mean it would not fall under the Freedom of Information Act.”

Nadorozny said no further efforts were made on this option.