3 ms·

I'm not a lawyer, but as I understand contract law, delivering something "close enough" is all that's required to satisfy a contract. Let's pretend everything's

I'm not a lawyer, but as I understand contract law, delivering something "close enough" is all that's required to satisfy a contract. Let's pretend everything's perfect except for one brown M&M. I'm sure a lawyer can explain it better, but if everything else is in order, I think Van Halen would have to perform their end of the deal.

Cthulhu_ 12y ago
Yeah, I severely doubt Van Halen were such primadonnas, and that clause was just a sanity check. I'm somehow sure more modern pop artists took cases like this as an excuse to make exorbitant demands and throw a fit if they weren't met though.
jmadsen 12y ago
You really, really, really missed the point of the M & M's thing.
- pjbrunet 12y ago
  That's why I said let's pretend. I'm not talking about the article, I'm talking about contract law. You "really" missed my point. Before I took a business law class, I figured everything in the contract had to be satisfied exactly. But that's not always how the law works. I'm talking about U.S. contracts. How would the brown M&M play out in Japan?
icegreentea 12y ago
In general, you go with 'what would a reasonable person say'. Now, for a rock concert, the color a backstage M&Ms in isolation is probably not enough to convince a judge that it was a good reason to break the contract. But the M&Ms aren't used in isolation. They're used as a flag, where their presence suggests that the venue did not follow through on their technical demands. Once you know that, then you just look for problems (probably the demands immediately around the M&M line first). Once you found an actual problem, well then, there you go.
- jmadsen 12y ago
  I think it's more likely that they used it as a flag to go double-check the safety measures. They made huge money from the concerts, nevermind the fans. They weren't looking for out-clauses
  - cnvogel 12y ago
    ...but the whole thing break down as soon as distinct teams are taking care of catering and checking the venues floor's mechanical load specs, so using this indicator only makes sense as long as the venues (and the teams working in them) are sufficiently small. Nowadays the "big shows" employ teams of dozens of guys travelling and dozens of helpers employed locally, it would be severely negligent if checking of basic requirements would only be done only on the basis if the catering guys met the random demand for colour-sorted sweets.
    - Argorak 12y ago
      Even in those organizations, there will be controlling and Q&A. Orgs being sloppy in one regard are often sloppy in another and probably gave down bad orders in the one direction _and in the other, too_. I organize smaller events, but you wouldn't believe the number of f-ups a bad manager can produce left and right. Often, the "ground crew" isn't even at fault - e.g. I had events where the ground crew was briefed to a standard timetable layout, although we had provided a timetable usable for them beforehand, having them fix a lot of things on the fly.

Cthulhu_ 12y ago

Yeah, I severely doubt Van Halen were such primadonnas, and that clause was just a sanity check. I'm somehow sure more modern pop artists took cases like this as an excuse to make exorbitant demands and throw a fit if they weren't met though.

jmadsen 12y ago

You really, really, really missed the point of the M & M's thing.

pjbrunet 12y ago
That's why I said let's pretend. I'm not talking about the article, I'm talking about contract law. You "really" missed my point. Before I took a business law class, I figured everything in the contract had to be satisfied exactly. But that's not always how the law works. I'm talking about U.S. contracts. How would the brown M&M play out in Japan?

icegreentea 12y ago

In general, you go with 'what would a reasonable person say'. Now, for a rock concert, the color a backstage M&Ms in isolation is probably not enough to convince a judge that it was a good reason to break the contract. But the M&Ms aren't used in isolation. They're used as a flag, where their presence suggests that the venue did not follow through on their technical demands. Once you know that, then you just look for problems (probably the demands immediately around the M&M line first). Once you found an actual problem, well then, there you go.

jmadsen 12y ago
I think it's more likely that they used it as a flag to go double-check the safety measures. They made huge money from the concerts, nevermind the fans. They weren't looking for out-clauses
- cnvogel 12y ago
  ...but the whole thing break down as soon as distinct teams are taking care of catering and checking the venues floor's mechanical load specs, so using this indicator only makes sense as long as the venues (and the teams working in them) are sufficiently small. Nowadays the "big shows" employ teams of dozens of guys travelling and dozens of helpers employed locally, it would be severely negligent if checking of basic requirements would only be done only on the basis if the catering guys met the random demand for colour-sorted sweets.
  - Argorak 12y ago
    Even in those organizations, there will be controlling and Q&A. Orgs being sloppy in one regard are often sloppy in another and probably gave down bad orders in the one direction _and in the other, too_. I organize smaller events, but you wouldn't believe the number of f-ups a bad manager can produce left and right. Often, the "ground crew" isn't even at fault - e.g. I had events where the ground crew was briefed to a standard timetable layout, although we had provided a timetable usable for them beforehand, having them fix a lot of things on the fly.