Celebrity Speakers Group Folds -- Debt, Sluggish Sales Are Blamed; Sponsors, Subscribers Left In Dark

They promised an impressive lineup of speakers - big names with big fees like H. Norman Schwarzkopf, George Bush and Margaret Thatcher. And for six years they delivered the goods.

But since the owners of Celebrity Forum closed their Seattle and Portland operations, sponsors and subscribers anxious for refunds and answers have been left in the dark.

Organizers of Celebrity Forum, Diane Daley-Eaton and her husband, Bruce Eaton, shut down the Seattle lecture series in November, citing sluggish ticket sales and a debt of $400,000. In December they asked Seattle ticket holders for 90 days to come up with an outline of alternatives. But ticket holders haven't seen their money, and in March, Celebrity Forum closed its Portland operations.

"I just think that we won't get our money back, said Gordon Haycock, Portland managing partner of Grant Thornton, an accounting firm that sponsored the lecture series in both Seattle and Portland, and may have lost $25,000 as a result.

Haycock found out the company was folding when he heard Celebrity Forum's voice-mail message. Seattle ticket holders who paid $200 to $500 for a season ticket of seven lectures received a brief letter, dated March 8, announcing the company's insolvency.

Some sponsors and ticket holders suspect that mismanagement is the root of the company's problems, and say the couple were not forthcoming about their financial problems until it was too late. So far, the Eatons have not filed for bankruptcy.

Daley-Eaton declined to comment.

However, she and her husband have said previously that the Seattle lecture series was never profitable and was always carried by the Portland operation.

"Seattle never made money," Bruce Eaton said in December. "At best it would break even. Usually it lost money. This year we were looking at losses of hundreds of thousands of dollars."

Sponsors said they had no idea how bad the situation had become.

"We had been sponsors for five or six years," said Steve Holwerda, chief operating officer of Ferguson Wellman Rudd Purdy & Van Winkle.

"We were happy with the event. Now it's everyone's fault but their own. They said it wasn't successful in Seattle, and that drained them. . . . But where did the money go?"

When signing Grant Thornton on as a first-time sponsor for the 1998-99 season in both cities, Haycock said, he was unaware of the company's large and growing debt until after the Seattle cancellation. In January the Eatons held a meeting with sponsors to discuss their financial troubles.

Haycock said he was given the impression that the Portland series, which ultimately delivered four events this year, would make it through the season and possibly next year.

"Two weeks before they announced that they were going under, Bruce Eaton . . . came into my office to deliver tickets," Haycock said. "(He) asked me to sign on through next year."

Ticket holders for the Portland events are probably better off than those who subscribed to the Seattle series and didn't pay by credit card.

The $125,000 bond required by the Portland Performance Arts Center will cover the facility's $23,000 in costs and help reimburse more than 1,500 Portland subscribers, said Harriet Sherburne, director of the Performance Arts enter.

Seattle ticket holders can pursue refunds on their own, but the state won't press battle their grievances. The state Consumer Protection Agency in Seattle received 33 complaints. But officials have concluded there was no deliberate deception on the Eatons' part, agency spokeswoman Janice Marich said.

Lee Van Divort of Seattle said she was was able to get her $540 back through her credit-card company.