Promoter Sues Microsoft Over Kinect Launch Event

Remember the Times Square launch event for Kinect last fall? It took some begging, pleading, and cold hard cash just to happen, when the cops made the last-minute discovery a full blown concert didn’t have the requisite permits. The promoter who made all the bad stuff go away says Microsoft owes him $US63,000 for it.

When Ne-Yo [pictured]showed up to serenade the crowd waiting to buy the first Kinect sold in North America, the gathering became something a little more complex than what police had been told to expect. The event coordinator, the agency P.R.omotion!, “sweet-talked the NYPD and promised to pay $US45,000 in fines,” if they let it continue, reports AdWeek.

Now the company has sued Microsoft, a New York ad agency, and the Microsoft Xbox executive Craig McNary, for stiffing them on the back end. P.R.omotion says the three parties should pay the $US63,150 it absorbed in fines, legal fees and other costs associated with fixing everything.

“I’ve never had to do this, ever, and my clients are the biggest in the country,” Tom Hennigan, P.R.omotion’s owner, told AdWeek. “It’s unfortunate that this happened.”

Hennigan says he warned everyone that New York authorities didn’t like surprises. Thirty minutes before the first Kinect was sold, police threatened shut the whole thing down because no one said Ne-Yo would be there. Says P.R.omotion’s lawsuit, McNary directed the planner to “negotiate with the city to ensure that the event would proceed.”

Microsoft and the other ad agency named both declined comment to AdWeek.

Event Planner Sues Microsoft Over Kinect Launch Snafu [AdWeek, thanks ScratchButt]