LOS ANGELES — AEG, the media giant that owns and operates the budding entertainment hub L.A. Live, plans to announce today that it has secured Panasonic System Solutions as a founding sponsor for the venue.
Panasonic will be one of eight sponsors committing to a multimillion-dollar contract over several years. Others include Coca-Cola, American Express and Wachovia Bank. AEG is owned by Denver financier Philip Anschutz.
L.A. Live is a $2.5 billion entertainment project that features a music venue, a movie theater, a Grammy museum and dozens of restaurants spread over 4 million square feet in downtown Los Angeles. A high-rise hotel and condos on the property are not yet open.
Under the terms of the partnership, Panasonic will install more than 1,000 TV monitors throughout L.A. Live, as well as an 8,000-square-foot screen that AEG says will be the largest in North America.
The companies plan to use L.A. Live to unveil and showcase Panasonic products and solicit consumer feedback on them, said J.M. Allain, president of Panasonic System Solutions.
“We want this campus to not just equal Times Square but be ahead of Times Square in its technology,” AEG president Timothy Leiweke said.
Advertising and sponsorship dollars are getting tougher to attract.
The Sponsorship Report, a trade magazine, predicts North America growth in that industry of 2.2 percent from 2008 to 2009, which would be the smallest increase in the forecast’s history.
The Panasonic deal also will put its products in other AEG venues, including 12 that are planned or completed in China.
“We look at this as an investment in future technologies,” Allain said.
