Damage-control takes centre-stage
Hong Kong's embattled live music industry is to embark on a top-to-bottom overhaul in a bid to clean up the city's tarnished image as an international concert venue.
The move comes as Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre managing director Cliff Wallace warns time is running out to tackle problems that have led to a series of cancellations, public complaints and bad publicity in recent years.
He has cautioned that unless the industry gets its act together, Hong Kong will 'shoot itself in the foot' and alienate the public to a dangerous degree.
One of the first steps will be a range of new measures put in place for the visit of the Rolling Stones at the end of this month, which will include the first use of a new 3,000-seat collapsible grandstand.
For what is arguably the biggest show to be staged in Hong Kong - two nights at 8,000-seat capacity - the stage will be raised by about 30cm for the first time to improve the audience's view.
There will also be unprecedented security, probably including body searches as people enter.
And in another first, bosses at the Convention Centre have re-located a function planned for the hall immediately below Hall 3 where the Stones will perform to smooth the way for people leaving the concert.
'We have had complaints and this is something we will also consider in future - if it is necessary and feasible,' Mr Wallace said.
This month, representatives from every sector involved in putting on shows in Hong Kong will hold the first of a series of meetings to plan the way forward to put Hong Kong on the international concert venue map.
The initiative, driven by Mr Wallace, already has promoters, technicians, security companies and food and beverage firms on board, and it is hoped international music business figures and government officials will attend future meetings.
Mr Wallace, who has been in charge of the Convention Centre since it opened in 1997 and is also chairman of the World Council for Venue Management, said: 'It doesn't take somebody with too much smarts to know that if we are really going to get serious about entertainment, we can't do it haphazardly.
'For someone who has been in this industry all his life, I know that if we are going to be serious in the entertainment business then we have to get into it in a very serious way, and we have to make sure the standards are high.
'There's every reason right now to be concerned because of some of the things that have occurred.'
The latest moves come after years of embarrassing concert blunders, culminating last month in the collapse of the Pearl River Music Festival.
The three-day festival, which had hoped to bring in top acts from around the world and draw 60,000 people, was supposed to have gone ahead last weekend but was suspended because of contractual problems and noise pollution concerns.
The organisers were forced to give ticket buyers their money back.
