Hannity flap stirs lots of publicity

PROVO — Mayor Lewis Billings spent 10 minutes Thursday on the Sean Hannity Show, reassuring the conservative radio host in front of more than 10 million national listeners that Hannity is still welcome at the Stadium of Fire on the Fourth of July.

It's the kind of publicity Freedom Festival organizers can't buy. As for Hannity, his local critics say he has used the recent controversy over their letters to Utah newspapers as a way to create more publicity for himself by repeatedly discussing it on his show.

"Inadvertently, we may have given him more visibility," Provo resident Dawn Brimley said.

Hannity has talked about the letters, which brand him as a mean-spirited conservative propagandist and a poor choice to host the Stadium of Fire, in nearly every one of his weekday shows since the letters were published June 14.

Festival organizers lost count at 32 when they tried to track how many times

Hannity had mentioned the annual concert and fireworks show during his three-hour talk show, which airs on KSL Newsradio 1160 in Utah. And that was before the letters were published, festival executive director Carl Bacon said.

"We've certainly had amazing publicity from Sean," Bacon said.

Bacon stopped short of crediting Hannity or the controversy with boosting ticket sales, though the event is nearly sold out earlier than any time in its 24-year history.

"This will be the largest crowd we've ever had for the Stadium of Fire," said Bacon, who said the previous record is close to 50,000. "My guess is we'll be around 55,000" because of additional seating on the field at LaVell Edwards Stadium at Brigham Young University.

Bacon said a decision to sell tickets to select corporations and their employees before they were offered to the public is the real reason for the quick sellout. About 15,000 tickets were sold before the public could buy them in April.

Billings joined Thursday's show on the "newsmaker" line with lead-in music from the movie Rocky III ("Eye of the Tiger"), and Hannity immediately asked the mayor if he would be "disinvited."

Billings said Hannity would be welcomed in Utah County.

"I don't know why people need to feel there's only one side or one bias that's going to be represented," said Billings, who announced TV talk show host Larry King also is scheduled to appear.