KAABOO was sold out, just three days after Sunday's announcement that the festival had entered into a multi-year partnership with the San Diego Padres and the event was renamed from KAABOO Del Mar to KAABOO San Diego.
Virgin Fest, the arm of the World Music Festival "Richard Branson", has acquired all of the assets of the "KAABOO Festival" brand from the co-founders of "Cabo", "Brian E. Gordon" and "Seth Volkov". Gordon Wolkoff is, respectively, the president and president of Madison Companies, LLC, a privately held investment holding company based in Denver. They launched KAABOO, an exclusive festival of music, comedy, art and gastronomy, in 2015 at the Del Mar race circuit and in the adjacent exhibition grounds.
The final version of the three-day KAABOO Del Mar Festival concluded on Sunday with the participation of Dave Matthews Band, Kings of Leon, Mumford and Sons. This year's edition celebrated the second year in a row that the event was pre-sold, with more than 35,000 attending during the three days.
The KAABOO sale was announced Wednesday morning and negotiated with Virgin Fest by Los Angeles-based Latham Watkins, which calls itself the world's second largest law firm. The KAABOO sale price, a "100 percent asset acquisition" initiated by Virgin Founder and CEO Jason Filts, has not been disclosed.
Felts is also the founder and CEO of Virgin Produced, a subsidiary of Virgin in his Virgin Fest division. In 2015, he attended his first KAABOO with his parents, who reside at Del Mar. In 2016, Virgin Produced was required to become KAABOO 'Official Content Partner'. His role at the Del Mar Festival increased every following year, and he is now the managing partner of Cabo.
No reason was given for sale.
Madison honcho Gordon companies did not respond to emails or phone calls on Tuesday. Welt was also not available for comment.
However, in a statement released on Wednesday morning, Felts remembered attending the first edition of KAABOO five years ago.
"As it (was) the inaugural year of Cabo, attendance was low, but it was very clear to me that the vision was truly unique," he said in a written statement.
“It was also evident that KAABOO shared the Virgin Ideas approach with customer service, while offering a unique, differentiated, and multi-sensory product. ... On this basis, we invested and supported this vision for the first time in 2016. We look forward to the future of the KAABOO brand and its experiences In the festival under our ownership.
In the same statement released on Wednesday, Gordon Walkoff said: "We are delighted and delighted to have this unique vision and gratitude ... to validate this acquisition with such an experienced and progressive team." ... we are grateful to Richard (Branson) (Virgin Founder) and Virgin's early support for our brand, and we are confident that we are within the reach of Jason and his team, the journey we have begun to offer to adults (with the truly distinctive festival experience going to grow and grow for many years to come . "
The change of ownership was no surprise to Padres, who made his association with KAABOO San Diego the first major league team to officially participate in the production of an annual festival of this kind.
"We knew in advance that the deal would happen," Eric Graubner, head of business operations for parents, told Union-Tribune on Tuesday.
“When we reached an agreement with KAABOO, we understood that they were completing the transfer of business to Virgin Fest, so we knew that at the time. We are very excited to work with Jason and Virgin Fest and the same group of people who have been running KAABOO for some time.”
The sale comes after a year of growth and contraction for KAABOO, which this year presented two new festivals, KAABOO Cayman in March and KABOO Texas in May.
The two-day event on Cayman attracted a crowd of 10,000 and the 2020 version was announced and immediately available for sale. On September 6, KAABOO announced the cancellation of the Cayman event. No reason given.
The three-day event in Texas, held at AT&T Stadium, was so little in attendance that the 2020 version was not announced. In an interview with Union-Tribune, Felts said it is unclear whether the Texas Festival will return.
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