{"id":118426,"date":"2026-02-19T21:25:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T21:25:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/118426\/"},"modified":"2026-02-19T21:25:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T21:25:07","slug":"lackawanna-county-authority-extend-montage-pavilion-agreement-with-live-nation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/118426\/","title":{"rendered":"Lackawanna County, authority extend Montage Pavilion agreement with Live Nation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lackawanna County and the county authority that oversees the Pavilion at Montage Mountain extended an agreement with Live Nation and will work with the entertainment giant toward future upgrades and improvements to the county-owned concert venue in Scranton, officials said.<\/p>\n

Commissioners Thom Welby, Bill Gaughan and Chris Chermak unanimously approved Wednesday a ninth amendment to a concert concession agreement between the county, the Lackawanna County Performing Arts Center Authority and Live Nation, extending the agreement through 2026. Among other terms, Live Nation will again pay the authority an annual fee of $600,000 under the amendment and an additional $2 per paid ticket sold for events held at the venue this year, down from $2.75 per ticket under a prior amendment for 2025.<\/p>\n

Extending the pact also provides time for the parties to \u201chave a serious discussion about finally rehabbing the entire area up there at the amphitheater, dealing with parking problems and the traffic problems,\u201d county Chief of Staff Brian Jeffers said at Wednesday\u2019s commissioners meeting. \u201cSo we will be diving straight into a full look at rehabbing the amphitheater in the very near future.\u201d<\/p>\n

Traffic challenges have long plagued the pavilion, a legacy issue commissioners acknowledged before voting on the amendment. In a particularly frustrating recent example, gridlocked traffic for a Breaking Benjamin and Three Days Grace concert there in September<\/a> caused many concertgoers to miss part or all of show, with some sitting in idling cars for hours trying to get up the mountain. It marred for many the venue\u2019s final summer concert of 2025.<\/p>\n

The amended agreement says that, during the extended 2026 term, Live Nation, the authority and the county \u201cshall continue to use best efforts to develop a future capital plan in which both parties provide capital to upgrade the Amphitheater, to negotiate and enter into a long-term extension of the Agreement and to discuss traffic control to improve the flow and safety during events.\u201d<\/p>\n

While that language is carried over from previous amendments, officials said renewed efforts on those fronts will soon begin in earnest.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is something that we have been working towards since I took office in 2024,\u201d Gaughan said Wednesday. \u201cI don\u2019t need to tell anybody in this room who\u2019s ever been up there for a concert that traffic is a major issue. Parking is an issue. \u2026 (We) have been in discussions with Live Nation and with other individuals on how we can address those and how we can mitigate the disaster that occurred with the last concert this past summer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gaughan, who touted the pavilion as an asset and economic driver, also said it needs \u201cmajor league renovations\u201d to bring it into the 21st century for fans and performers alike, specifically noting the need to upgrade the backstage area.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen some of the acts come in they don\u2019t want to go there because it\u2019s like something out of the Rocky Horror Picture Show,\u201d he said. \u201cThey bring their families with them and they want to hang out and it\u2019s just not conducive to that, so we\u2019ve been talking for the last year-and-a-half, two years about plans to really make it a first-class entertainment venue.\u201d<\/p>\n

The concessions area, entrance and other areas of the venue are also likely to be targeted for upgrades, but specific plans have yet to be finalized, Gaughan said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis agreement is a crucial first step though to making much-needed improvements up there,\u201d he said of the amendment. \u201cAnd I think when people see the plans and when it all comes together, I think you\u2019ll be very pleased with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Welby echoed that sentiment, noting the traffic issues officials hope to ameliorate.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is just unacceptable that it takes two hours, at times, to get up to see a concert and two hours to get out of there,\u201d Welby said while emphasizing that traffic gridlock could create serious problems in the event of an emergency. \u201cYou can have the three lanes of traffic totally blocking that road. If there were a disaster (or) anything to occur up on top of that mountain, we couldn\u2019t get the people out of there other than (with) a helicopter. That is totally unacceptable. We cannot put ourselves in a position to have something like that happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Moving forward, Welby continued, \u201cyou can count on the commissioners working very, very hard with all the parties that can change that \u2014 and that includes, perhaps, some state and federal money to change that \u2014 but for me goal number one is to change that traffic issue that can be a tragedy issue.\u201d<\/p>\n

Consultants who briefed commissioners in July<\/a> on a comprehensive Montage Mountain economic development study also highlighted the mountain\u2019s traffic problems. The study suggested improvements to transportation infrastructure and traffic circulation there.<\/p>\n

The consultants recommended the possible widening of Montage Mountain Road to accommodate more vehicles and the potential conversion of an existing emergency access road into a permanent road. While infrastructure projects of that sort would likely take years, the study said the county should start the process by exploring potential funding sources and performing preliminary engineering and related work to gauge probable costs.<\/p>\n

What specific traffic solutions officials ultimately advance \u2014 and the terms of a potential future agreement between Live Nation, the performing arts center authority and the county for amphitheater capital improvements \u2014 remain to be seen.<\/p>\n

Efforts to reach Live Nation representatives were not immediately successful, nor were efforts to reach authority Solicitor Rocco Valvano.<\/p>\n

The term of the original concert concession agreement between the authority and West 42nd Street Music LLC, doing business as Clear Channel Entertainment, ran for 10 concert seasons, from early 2002 through late 2011. Live Nation took over the contract in 2005, when Clear Channel created it as an independent spinoff company.<\/p>\n

While the ninth amendment to the agreement only extends it through the end of this year, Gaughan said he hopes discussions and negotiations will result in another long-term deal.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the other reasons I\u2019m supporting this (amendment) is because this is going to lead into a discussion about a long-term agreement, which I think both parties have wanted for a long time,\u201d he said Wednesday. \u201cA 10-to-15-year agreement.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOverall the amphitheater, although there are issues, has a huge economic impact for Lackawanna County,\u201d he said moments later. \u201cLive Nation is the biggest player in terms of concert promotors in North America and I think we\u2019re very lucky to have them, and so far they\u2019ve been a pretty good partner with us.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lackawanna County and the county authority that oversees the Pavilion at Montage Mountain extended an agreement with Live…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":118427,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[201,182,139,28,178,180,179],"class_list":{"0":"post-118426","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-scranton","8":"tag-lackawanna-county","9":"tag-local-news","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-pennsylvania","12":"tag-scranton","13":"tag-scranton-headlines","14":"tag-scranton-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118426"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118426\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/118427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}