Ordinary Gweilo

The Harbour Fest controversy rumbles on. Yesterday Simon, Phil, Conrad and Giles all had a go at this following the publication of an official report on the subject, and now here I am, late as usual!

My view is that there was no need for Harbour Fest, the government should never have got involved, and professionals should have organized and promoted the event. There seems to be a general consenus on the last point, but some people still think it was a good idea and the government was right to ensure that it happened. I disagree – there was no need for the event at all (which is not to say that it wouldn’t have been a good thing to have a properly-run event, just that there was no need for it)

National and local governments all over the world suffer from a delusion that staging a big event will bring favourable publicity and attract both tourists and businessmen. On a bigger scale we have the Olympics, with ‘national pride’ at stake as cities from around the world waste vast amounts of money competing in order to win the right to lose more money. The politicians and civil servants behind the bids will argue that it’s worthwhile because of the tangible benefits such as new facilities and improved infrastructure, and the intangible benefit of favourable publicity.

So why did Sydney want the Olympics? It’s already one of the best-known cities in the world, and a popular tourist destination. If people didn’t know about Sydney and had never thought of visiting it, would the Olympics have changed their minds? I doubt it. In fact, people who had planned to visit during the Olympics probably decided NOT to go because of the disruption, the higher prices and the myth that no hotel rooms would be available. It is arguable that Barcelona did derive benefit from staging the Olympics by increasing its profile, but the same argument surely doesn’t apply to Sydney (or London, Paris or Hong Kong).

The net cost of the Sydney Olympics is estimated to be well over A$1bn and they have ended up with sporting venues that are hardly used! Yes, Sydney was the centre of world attention for a few weeks and a few local politicians were briefly famous, but does that justify spending all that money? I think not.

Now we have London, Paris, New York, Madrid and Moscow all competing to stage the 2012 Olympics. One justification used for the London bid is that it will "involve the regeneration of a huge swathe of land in the east of the city around Stratford". If that is a desirable thing to do, why not just do it regardless of the Olympics?

In the case of Harbour Fest, nothing permanent was built so the only benefits arise from the publicity that was generated. This was the justification that was put forward by the government: we needed a big event to announce to the world that SARS was history and Hong Kong was back. No, we didn’t!

The very fact that SARS was a big news story ensured that the end of the outbreak would also get widespread publicity with or without Harbour Fest. Anyone doing business with Hong Kong companies or planning to come here would have known that the WHO had declared the outbreak to be over. Sure enough, well before Harbour Fest took place, the economy had recovered and visitors were returning to Hong Kong. A year later it is clear that the long-term impact has been very minimal. On top of that, most of the publicity regarding Harbour Fest was negative – yes, SARS has gone, but Hong Kong couldn’t organize a piss up in a brewery.

Secondly, there was no need for the government to get involved. It wasn’t crucial to Hong Kong’s future and even if it had been a roaring success it would have had only a marginal impact on the economy. Unfortunately, politicians and civil servants still believe that they can make a difference by doing something like this. Ironically, they also think that it’s fine to take long holidays, presumably on the assumption that they aren’t really that essential!

If the government had thought that it would make sense to stage an event on the Tamar site all they had to do was contact interested parties and ask them to make a bid. The site could have been made available free (or for a nominal charge) or the government could have taken a share of the profits, but at least it wouldn’t have cost HK$100 million.

Thirdly, as almost everyone agrees, it was madness to hand the event over to amateurs, however well-intentioned they may have been. If you want a job done properly you need to find the right people. Sensible fees for the (Western) artists and getting more paying customers would have been the difference between Harbour Fest being a success and a failure, and surely the professionals would have managed that.