Stefan "Scumeck" Sabottka (born 18 January 1962 in Oberhausen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany) is a German concert and tour organizer founded the former online ticket portal tickets.de.[1]

Early life

Scumeck Sabottka is the eldest child (of three children) of the merchant Hans Georg Sabottka and his wife Adelheid (née Kuntze). At the age of 18, Sabottka moved to West Berlin and joined the punk scene there.

In his home town, he was already a guitarist for the Dortmund punk rock group 'Public Enemy'. He got to know the musicians FM Einheit from the Hamburg group Abwärts and in 1982 he worked as the band’s driver.

Career

Tour management

In 1982 he became tour manager of the group Einstürzende Neubauten, and he accompanied them internationally until 1984.[2] Also in 1982, he organized his first concert at the SO 36 Club in Berlin with the Australian noise electric group, ‘SPK’.

From 1991, Sabottka was responsible for the worldwide coordination of the live performances Kraftwerk (until 2018) and Rammstein. This was followed by stadium tours with Robbie Williams, which sold about 1.2 million tickets in 2006.

MCT

In August 1984, together with the head of the company ‘Rough Trade Booking’ Dietrich Eggert and the manager of the band Die Toten Hosen, Jochen Hülder, he founded the company ‘MCT, Music Consulting Team GmbH’, in Herne. The company’s first tours were for the punk band Ramones from New York, the British punk combo King Kurt and the Welsh avantgarde musician John Cale. Parallel to this, Sabottka worked as an international tour manager for Violent Femmes and Johnathan Richman.[3]

After the departure of Eggert and Hülder, Sabottka took over the company MCT in 1988 with the Düsseldorf concert organizers Bernhard Lewkowicz and Rene Heinersdorff jr.[4]

In 1994 Sabottka moved to Munich with MCT, split from Lewkowicz and Heinersdorff Jr. and joined up with the famous concert organizers Marcel Avram and Fritz Rau, who took over the majority of the company shares. During this time (from 1994-1999) Sabottka organized concerts for artists such as: R.E.M, Lenny Kravitz, Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Cramps, Celine Dion, Tom Waits, Tanita Tikaram, Marilyn Manson, Melissa Etheridge, Sheryl Crow, Velvet Underground, Patti Smith, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Kraftwerk, Robbie Williams, Nick Cave and many more.[5] In 1998, Sabottka bought back all Avram & Rau's shares and moved to Berlin again.

Sabottka was in the media in 2022 to refute allegations of child abuse made against clients Die Antwoord on their behalf.[6]

Tickets.de

In 2005, Sabottka founded the internet concert ticket sales portal 'Tickets.de', which he sold in 2010. In 2010, 150,000 personalized concert tickets were sold worldwide for the band Take That’s stadium tour. This was followed by the heated battle against the secondary sale of concert tickets at inflated prices.[7] The business ceased operating in March 2023.[8]

In 2017 a documentary about Sabottka, “Der Konzertdealer” by filmmaker Sobo Swobodnik, was released in German cinemas. It depicted the harsh, globalized business behind the tours in the backstage area of the concert industry. The film music is by British experimentalist and artist Dinos Chapman.[9]

References

  1. ↑ "MusikWoche - People - Scumeck Sabottka". Mediabiz.de. Retrieved 17 December 2018.
  2. ↑ Berlin-Brandenburg), radioeins (Rundfunk. "Scumeck Sabottka: MP3 online hören - Hörbar Rust - radioeins - Audio 276174297". Podcast.de. Retrieved 17 December 2018.
  3. ↑ "Der "Konzertdealer" aus dem Pott - Kultur - WDR". www1.wdr.de. Archived from the original on 5 October 2017. Retrieved 17 January 2022.
  4. ↑ "Scumeck Sabottka". Freunde von Freunden. 27 March 2015. Retrieved 17 December 2018.
  5. ↑ "MCT Agentur GmbH". Mct-agentur.com. Retrieved 17 December 2018.
  6. ↑ "Die Antwoord's adopted son accuses band of physical and sexual abuse, and slavery". NME. 2022-04-26.
  7. ↑ Rest, Interview: Tanja (17 December 2018). ""Mafiöses System"". Sueddeutsche.de. Retrieved 17 December 2018.
  8. ↑ "Verabschiedung | tickets.de". Archived from the original on 2023-09-05.
  9. ↑ Brügel, Paula (5 October 2017). "Der Konzertdealer". Flim-rezensionen.de. Retrieved 17 December 2018.

Interviews

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.