TICKETS—A Mad Dash For Tickets To Confab

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It’s bigger than the Super Bowl.

With the Democratic National Convention just a week away, L.A.’s rich and powerful (and those aspiring to be) are desperately seeking tickets to the big event at Staples Center.

“I’m getting phone calls from people I haven’t talked to in years who want tickets to the convention,” said longtime Democratic Party activist Joe Cerrell, who owns a lobbying firm in town. “Even clients are calling and saying ‘It’s not for me, but for my wife or my business partner.'”

It’s not the carefully scripted show on the Staples Center podium that Angelenos want to see; rather, they’re after the chance to rub elbows with the hundreds of high-level politicos in town, including vice president and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Al Gore and his current boss, President Clinton.

In fact, Cerrell said, the hottest tickets are not the ones that provide access to the arena floor where the delegates are going to be, but those for the luxury suites, especially the suites closest to where the Gores will be. “Those are the hardest of all to get,” he said.

More than a third of the luxury suites are set aside for media outfits like CNN, MSNBC and the major networks. But the rest have been allocated to the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic congressional campaign committees and various other Democratic organizations. Those groups, in turn, have doled out suite tickets to major donors and party activists.

Trouble is, if you’re not a donor who has contributed more than, say $100,000, to the Democratic Party or to the private-sector host committee putting on this year’s convention, or you haven’t been in the trenches on behalf of Democratic candidates for the last 20 years, you’re not going to be on the invitation list to the convention, let alone to the luxury suites.

But that’s where connections come in handy.

“I’ve been getting calls from some of my partners who want credentials, even some of my clients,” said attorney and city commissioner Lisa Specht with the Century City law firm Manatt, Phelps & Phillips LLP. “People just want to be there, to be seen.”

This is Hollywood, after all, and the world will be watching.

Specht is expecting a flurry of calls this week from people seeking tickets to the convention. As a result, she said, the firm is keeping the specific number of tickets it is slated to receive a closely guarded secret.

Popping out of the woodwork

Among other prominent Democrats who have received calls is Art Torres, chairman of the California Democratic Party. He said he’s been getting about 10 calls a day.

“I’ve found cousins I didn’t realize I had,” Torres said. “They just want to get into the Staples Center, to be there.”

Most of the calls, Torres said, are from politically active people who want to be on the convention floor “out of a sense of historical importance.”

The demand, Torres said, is higher this year than in 1996 because Staples Center is slightly smaller than the United Arena in Chicago, with about 1,000 fewer seats although there is more suite space at Staples.

“Not everyone who wants to get in is going to get in, so that’s why we’re making every effort to include some of the party activists at other convention-related events,” he said.

As of late last week, the actual tickets, or “credentials” as they are officially called, had not yet been doled out. The Democratic National Convention Committee was keeping them under lock and key at an unspecified downtown location, in part for security reasons.

The DNCC last month assumed control of Staples Center, including all of the luxury suites, meaning the suite-holders for sporting events and concerts the rest of the year had to surrender them for the convention. (Suite-holders like AT & T Corp. and Sempra Energy Corp. are also major contributors to the Democratic Party or the L.A. Convention 2000 host committee, so they may end up in the luxury suites anyway.)

Over the last several months, according to DNCC spokesman Luis Vizcaino, the DNCC has earmarked credentials for the 160 luxury suites as follows: 62 for media outlets; 35 to 40 for the Democratic National Committee; 15 to 20 to both the House and Senate Democratic campaign committees; and 15 to 20 for the Gore campaign and White House officials. Several more suites have gone to other Democratic organizations, like the Democratic Conference of Mayors and the Democratic Governors Association.

These committees, in turn, have promised suite tickets to many of their most prominent or prodigious contributors, such as AT & T;, Microsoft Corp., General Motors Corp., Walt Disney Co., Seagram Co. (parent of Universal Studios), and DreamWorks SKG.

As of late last week, the L.A. Convention 2000 host committee was still negotiating with the DNCC over how many tickets it would obtain and then hand over to its top-level financial sponsors. These include AT & T;, Microsoft, Motorola Corp., SunAmerica Inc., Hilton Hotels Corp., United Airlines, and Bank of America Corp.

Doling out credentials

“It’s definitely a hot ticket,” said Randall Hernandez, president of the government relations division at Bank of America. “Besides (BofA’s California President) Liam McGee, we have several government relations people and other executives attending.”

Meanwhile, at Hilton Hotels, senior executives as of late last week were still waiting to see how many tickets they would receive from the host committee.

“The senior (Hilton) executives will make the choice as to who goes,” said spokeswoman Kathy Shephard. “However, I must say, we haven’t had anybody ask to get tickets so far.”

And of course, no big-time Staples event would be complete without it’s gaggle of Hollywood celebrities. And the Democratic convention will be no exception.

Chief among them will be a “celebrity delegation” actors Ben Affleck, Ted Danson, William Baldwin, Patricia Arquette and Woody Harrelson who are slated to appear to lobby for public education programs and campaign finance reform.

For those star-gazers unable to secure a coveted arena ticket, celebs are expected to be in plentiful supply at the Barbra Streisand/Whoopie Goldberg concert at the nearby Shrine Auditorium, immediately following Gore’s acceptance speech on the final night of the convention.

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