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The 45 minute show at St Georges Hall, which opened Capital of Culture 2008, cost an astonishing £4.5million.
That's the shocking tab which will now have to be picked up by Liverpool's council tax payers.
It works out, by our calculations, at about £112,500 per minute (£4,500,000 divided by 40).
Or £118 for every man, woman and child in the audience! (£4,500,000 divided by 38,000)
The show, which police estimated drew 38,000 people in front of Lime Street, featured Ringo as the special guest star with his 'Liverpool 08 - I Left You" dirge.
Other highlights included:
- some non-Liverpool bearded bloke providing the commentary
- quite a lot of people standing on roofs pretending to be playing guitars
- a parade of 'C' list celebs, including the Lib Dem Lord Mayor and Our Lord Redmond, who came on and waved at the crowd
- and the quip from one bloke in the audience as he was showered with paper confetti: "that's my council tax money".
The £4.5 million cost is double the amount which was forecast - no surprise given the appalling incompetence of the Culture Company, overseen by the worst council in the country.
The cost escalated after Fireman Bradley told CoC chiefs:"The show must go on - whatever the cost."
He warned them that he would not tolerate a repeat of the Mathew Street fiasco.
Culture Company bosses, including the holidaying Kris Donaldson and Our Lord Redmond, have been desperate to try and keep the final cost covered up.
To no avail.
We expect them to do everything possible to avoid answering a potential Freedom of Information question, clearly and directly.
Never mind truthfully.
But we would encourage our loyal readers to ask that question.
Meanwhile our Lib Dem run city council is £62million in debt, closing old folks homes, leisure and sport centres, raising charges and increasing the council tax by the maximum allowed - almost double the rate of inflation.
The cost escalated after Fireman Bradley told CoC chiefs:"The show must go on - whatever the cost."
He warned them that he would not tolerate a repeat of the Mathew Street fiasco.
Culture Company bosses, including the holidaying Kris Donaldson and Our Lord Redmond, have been desperate to try and keep the final cost covered up.
To no avail.
We expect them to do everything possible to avoid answering a potential Freedom of Information question, clearly and directly.
Never mind truthfully.
But we would encourage our loyal readers to ask that question.
Meanwhile our Lib Dem run city council is £62million in debt, closing old folks homes, leisure and sport centres, raising charges and increasing the council tax by the maximum allowed - almost double the rate of inflation.
- No 38 in a Liverpool SubCulture series 'Stories you won't read in the craven Echo'.
5 comments:
I went to the opening ceremony alone after first ascertaining that my wife and children "couldn't be arsed" going.
At five minutes to eight, after discovering that marshalls wouldn't let me get anywhere near the event to see what was going on, I turned back and was on the train home before the ceremony started.
Since I missed the second coming of the messiah, in the form of some 60's throwback, is there somewhere I can contact to claim my £118 pounds back?
After trying to struggle through the scallies we stood some 30 foot from Wellington's Column and still could not hear or see hardly anything. When it abruptly finished we turned to walk away listening to nearly everyone asking questions such as "was that it?"
If an organiser had come up to me or anyone else around me and demanded £118 they would have been lynched.
Its a cert that the city council won't be owning up to these costs before May 1st.
who was in charge of spending this amount of money? was it Mc Cogloose ? or Fiona Gusset? How was a budget allowed to escalate to this level? Where was the management? what checks and balences were in place? surely there are some processes that raise the alarm when money is squandered like this? What the hell were finance doing allowing this to happen?
Was this budget managed by an external company if so how did they achieve best value?
Or was this another Summer Pops type contract where you can spend as much as you want as long as it happens and we will sort the mess out later mate.
You could not make this up !
When the truth comes out about this bunch of incompetent buffoons it will become a best seller!
I can only hope that these people are never allowed to hold similar positions in future.
Liverpool has suffered irepairable damage by being governed by these Charlatans and incompetants.
This is corruption in its purest form.
Watched Paxman grilling the Culture Secretary last night over the cost over runs and lack of budget control on the London Olympics. It just seemed like what we have experienced in Liverpool is par for the course. Judging by her performance and lack of understanding of what's happened nothing seemed to be a problem to her. I think the Culture Company carpet baggers and snake oil salesmen have a ready made berth to occupy when they all leave town! Seems the ethos is just to 'Carry on regardless' After all its only public or lottery money some one has to spend it!
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