Indianapolis News and Headlines

Actions

Indy Motor Speedway sued over Indy 500 party

Party organizers seek six figures
Posted at 10:05 AM, Aug 17, 2016
and last updated 2016-08-17 12:20:48-04

SPEEDWAY, Ind. -- Organizers with a party for Maxim, a magazine that caters to men, were expecting to make at least $1 million from a party it was hosting during the 100th running of the Indianapolis 500. Instead, they only made a fraction of that, and now are suing because of it.

California-based Karma International, a company that organizes events, filed a breach of contract lawsuit in federal court in Indianapolis on Tuesday.

Karma International is demanding the Indianapolis Motor Speedway pay $817,500 in damages.

In the court filing, the company says it planned on 1,500 people to attend its Maxim party on May 27. Each ticket was to be sold for $500. Organizers planned on making $1,000,000 from the sale of tickets and tables. The event sold 418 tickets, some at discounted prices, which only generated $182,500.     

The lawsuit says the Indianapolis Motor Speedway "failed to perform the advertising for the Indy 500 Maxim party."
Karma International claims the Speedway was supposed to notify 425,000 people about the event, but only sent out an email to 15,000 people.

Karma claims that a similar party at the Super Bowl it raked in $1,056,850.

A representative from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway said they are preparing to make a comment to respond to the lawsuit. Refresh this page for updates on the lawsuit.