Gigi D’Agostino Sues Salzburg’s Electric Love Festival Over Unpaid Fee
Four years after the cancellation of the Electric Love Festival at Salzburgring in Salzburg due to the pandemic, a legal battle has erupted over the fee of a performer.
Italian DJ Gigi D’Agostino has filed a lawsuit against the festival for an outstanding fee of 20,000 euros, despite not rescheduling his performance later on, as reported by multiple media outlets on Thursday. The festival, which attracts around 45,000 spectators per day, has been taking place since 2013, but had to be canceled in 2020 due to the pandemic. D’Agostino was supposed to receive 40,000 euros for his performance, half of which had already been paid in advance. At the time, the organizers had agreed with all the artists that they could keep their deposits and reschedule their performances.
In a statement released in July 2020, the organizers had already confirmed D’Agostino as “booked” for 2021. However, this edition was also canceled, and in 2022, the DJ canceled his performance in Salzburg due to health reasons. Now, the artist is seeking to recover the remaining 20,000 euros through legal means. During a hearing in Switzerland, his lawyer stated that the second part of the fee should have been paid out by May 2020.
Gigi D’Agostino made headlines involuntarily two weeks ago when a video surfaced on social media showing young people chanting “Foreigners out” and “Germany for Germans” to the tune of his party hit “L’amour toujours” outside a venue on the German North Sea island of Sylt, sparking outrage beyond Germany. Incidents were also reported in Austria, and the song was temporarily boycotted by some radio stations. Additionally, the Austrian Football Association (ÖFB) needs to find a new celebration song for the UEFA Euro in Germany after the planned “L’amour toujours” was prohibited by UEFA.