Staples Center owners sell out luxury suites after falling short in 2009

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

After cutting back a bit last year, Southern California corporations went ahead and rented all 150 luxury suites in Staples Center, owner AEG said Tuesday.

The price of VIP entertainment is not cheap – boxes that hold as many as 14 people cost between $250,000 and $475,000 a year, depending on their location in the downtown Los Angeles arena. For that, owners get about 2,500 tickets a year to every public event held at Staples. Those include Los Angeles Lakers, Clippers and Sparks basketball games and Los Angeles Kings hockey games, along with concerts, lectures, the X games and the occasional wrestling match.

The boxes didn’t sell out in 2009, AEG spokesman Michael Roth said, but they did for 2010. A few of the boxes are held by individuals, but most are rented by companies that use them to entertain clients. One of the suites is rented by the Los Angeles Times.

Suite prices don’t include food or drinks, which cost extra. They do include a couple of VIP parking passes and entitle ticket holders to use a special entrance to the arena.

-- Roger Vincent