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Quake concert cancelled for lack of sponsors

Sukhjit Purewal in San Jose

The Compaq Centre in San Jose was supposed to be grooving to the sounds of Luther Vandross and Latin sensation Marc Antony in a concert to raise funds for earthquake victims in India and El Salvador.

Instead, the centre stood empty on July 29 and not a cent was raised for the disaster victims.

It turns out that the concert, dubbed Aftershock by organisers, was itself a victim -- not of a natural disaster, but of lack of corporate sponsorship.

"Because of the failure of the corporate community to come forward with sponsorship for this concert, we have found it necessary to cancel the concert set for July 29, 2001. It would have been unconscionable for us to ask artistes unless their efforts would have resulted in a major donation to the victims," says to a note signed by Mickey Shapiro on the aftershockbenefit.com site.

"The gate receipts alone would only cover the costs of producing the event. We had been promised corporate support, but it was not forthcoming."

Calls placed to Shapiro by rediff.com were not returned. The show was to be produced by the House of Blues Concerts and Andrew Hewitt and Bill Silva Presents.

All proceeds from the concert were to go directly to community-based programmes in El Salvador and Gujarat. The concert was described in newspaper advertisements as a 'people-to-people effort'. Both Vandross and Antony had agreed to perform free.

The Aftershock Web site states that the foundation will continue to collect contributions for the cause and has a Beverly Hill address listed where people can send donations.

The Gujarat Earthquake: Complete Coverage

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