IT COULD be billed as the spectacle that nearly never was. Come March, French son et lumiere man Jean-Michel Jarre will light up the sky over the new-look Hong Kong Stadium, but if the rumour mill is to be believed, the music could so easily have been overshadowed by talk of money.
At a press conference last week, the Urban Council confirmed that Jarre, who over the years had taken his dazzling performances to China, London's Docklands and every major European city, would help launch the stadium on March 11. It was all smiles for Urban Council head Dr Ronald Leung Ding-bong and the gang, but that was not the case earlier in the month when the Jarre proposal appeared to have been scuppered due to cost considerations.
Sources close to the organisers suggested the council got cold feet when faced with initial budget approximates from the Frenchman's camp. Indeed, a figure of $15 million had been bandied about in the local press. Then the Frenchman came to town, and within days, the decision was reversed.
Promoter Andrew Bull later said there had been a $6 million budget allocated to the opening ceremony, but that fell short of Jarre's requirements. Eventually, Hong Kong Telecom and Cathay Pacific made up the shortfall, Jarre agreed to perform for free, andthe show went ahead.
Jarre explained away the saga, and his personal visit, to the Sunday Morning Post Magazine as the result of communication problems.
'It was not necessarily a question of persuasion because I was contacted originally by the Hong Kong side,' Jarre said from his Paris office.