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Matthew Vella
Cooped up in the two-star British Hotel overlooking the Grand Harbour, world famous stage designer Jonathan Park made a quiet exit out of Malta, dejected and surprised at being absent from the Commonwealth’s opening event he designed for Queen Elizabeth.
“They didn’t speak to me and there wasn’t as much as a ‘thank you’ after the incident,” Park says about Welcomevents, the organising consortium led by journalist Lou Bondì. “The police were rather high-handed with me and the incident was temperamental and certainly not as serious, although I did apologise to the Commissioner of Police,” Park said, who was publicly ‘sacked’ by Bondì from the organisation of the CHOGM opening event after protesting his security screening at the Mediterranean Conference Centre.
Park proceeded to remove his short angrily in front of security officers, when the stage designer, who has worked with Pink Floyd and U2, refused the umpteenth screening as he passed through heavy security checks.
“I think Welcomevents should have supported me. Instead Bondì fell into his public role as chairman of the consortium and sacked me. I did get on well with him, although another member of the consortium told me some very inappropriate and rude things, and was himself involved in similar altercations with some directors at the conference centre.”
Park said he was fed up of being treated “just like a technician” at the MCC. He felt rejected by the consortium once he rendered his services. He is now waiting for the full payment of his fee.
“I have been told my fee has been transferred to my account although there is still no indication of that,” he said.
“I was surprised at being at the British Hotel,” he said about the budget hotel, “but it wasn’t as bad, having the view of Fort St Angelo and watching HMS Illustrious enter the harbour – my father was killed on the HMS Indomitable two days before the 1943 convoy came to Malta, so it was quite emotional.”
Park said the consortium had also told him all hotels were booked. “They said the event was being financed by just Lm40,000, so I accepted a minimal fee, since this was also being held for the Queen.”
The event in fact cost Lm49,500 to organise, with an additional Lm20,000 for the construction of the stage. “I was surprised at the small amount of money for such an important event.”
Park, who said he had no signed contract with the consortium, said he accepted a small fee, over Lm5,000, for his design of the spectacular, but said it was “very minimal for such an important event”. He has already organised two spectaculars for the Queen of England.
“And yet, I wasn’t even asked to be present for the CHOGM opening event I myself designed and inspired – I had to watch it on my hotel room TV.”
He criticised the lack of professionalism during the organisation, saying there was no independent production manager for the event. “It looked reasonably ok,” he said about the spectacular, “but the television production was very bad.”
Park is back in England, working on new projects, but is hoping the Welcomevents team will be including him in the credits for the production. “I wasn’t even given a programme, so I don’t know whether I am credited for the show I created.”
mvella@mediatoday.com.mt
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