Update | Will show go on? Anxious fans await 4pm update from Canto-pop king Leon Lai
Veteran performer uncertain if remaining concerts can take place after fire safety woes lead to cancellation of Thursday performance
Canto-pop king Leon Lai Ming apologised to his fans on Thursday night for leaving them in limbo after his concert was cancelled at the last moment over fire safety concerns.
The show, the first in a run of eight, was due to begin at 8pm at the Central Harbourfront on Lung Wo Road. But two hours before that, the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department sent out a press release saying it was refusing to issue a temporary permit for the concert because the event organisers had failed to meet fire safety standards.
Lai said he would make an announcement at 4pm on Friday on what would happen to the rest of his concerts.
Lai, 49, apologised in a video posted on his Facebook page at about 6pm, explaining that the fireproof material for the marquee that would house the show did not meet British safety standards. The outdoor venue can accommodate 4,500 people, and Lai would have been the first local singer to use it for a solo concert.
“We’re trying to see what changes we can make. People in the queue, please go home now. All I can say here is I’m sorry for all the inconvenience caused,” Lai said in the recorded message.
The Canto-pop idol made a personal appearance at the scene, using a hand-held megaphone to repeat the message.
Lai urged his fans in another video he posted online not to blame the department, saying he and his team would bear full responsibility. “Please don’t misunderstand. I have to make it clear that the case had nothing to do with the department,” he said.
Notices posted at the barricaded entrance to the venue said the show was cancelled due to “licence issues”, and ticket holders should visit the singer’s official Facebook page for the latest announcements.
But scores of disappointed fans continued to linger at the venue two hours after the show was cancelled, having paid HK$980 to HK$2,980 for a ticket.
Garment worker Winnie Hung, 67, said she was not ready to leave as organisers had yet to announce what would happen to the remaining shows. “I bought tickets for eight shows,” the fan of 30 years said. “Will there be a concert tomorrow? I don’t mind a change of venue or a postponement. I just want to see Leon.”
Tsang Tat-ming, senior divisional officer at the Fire Services Department, said inspectors noticed problems with the marquee last month. It was not up to standard and could catch fire under strong stage lights. He said organisers failed to satisfy them on several occasions, including an inspection at 2pm on Thursday.
Speaking in another video, which was posted on Facebook at 11.30pm on Thursday, Lai said he and the organisers would be looking for the right material on Friday in order to meet the licence requirement. He reiterated that he would announce at 4pm whether the concert on Friday night could go on.
Speaking on RTHK on Friday, Tsang from the Fire Services Department suggested that the right fire repellent solution could be all that was needed.
When the host asked whether the marquee needed to be taken down or covered in a special solution, Tsang said: “Some materials meet the standard without anything sprayed on it, but for other materials, they could meet the standard by spraying some [fire repellent] solution.”
He reiterated that a fabric could meet the department’s safety standard if someone set fire to it for 10 seconds but the fire went out within five seconds.
Former Director of Fire Services Anthony Lam Chun-man told a Commercial Radio host on Friday that the responsibility was on the events’ organiser, as they should have hired fire engineers to make risk assessments and give advice as soon as they started planning the concert.
“The key is to assess the risk and adopt measures to diminish it,” he added.
Speaking on RTHK, Consumer Council chief executive Gilly Wong Fung-han urged the concert’s organiser to keep fans fully informed.
“In general, if a show cannot go on ... I hope organisers can be customer oriented and inform them as soon as possible on the latest decisions and what will happen next,” Wong said.
“We will also keep an eye on [Lai’s concert] ... If anyone would like to lodge a complaint, they should keep their invoice, tell us what they want, and we will follow up with the organisers,” she added.
