JEDDAH, 29 June 2003 — The Jeddah Festival is under way — some of it. It seems that some events advertised are not going to happen at all, some will start late and others will go ahead as scheduled.
Organizing a public event on this scale requires two essential elements: Forward planning and commitment.
In a series of interviews with organizers and event participants, Arab News discovered that the planning appears complete but some of the participants have failed to commit or have delayed after the deadline for publication of the festival schedule.
The schedule Arab News received was published in good faith on the deadline but has proved to be based on hope and intent rather than signed contracts. Since then contracts have not materialized from participants, leaving gaps in the festival schedule.
Arab News understands from sources at the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry (JCCI) that the situation is gradually becoming clearer and that most of the events will begin on July 1.
In one case, a venue at the King Fahd Coastal City in Baghdadiya district was booked. “It’s very embarrassing for us,” Abdullah Al-Mutairi, the project manager, said, “We have all the facilities ready to go, but some difficulties within the booking company and their internal arrangements mean that the event will not be held.”
The King Fahd Coastal City’s name appears on the advertised schedule “so people will think it’s our fault and it simply is not,” Al-Mutairi added.
Much the same story applies to the children’s Cartoon Character Festival at Sail Island, the family-themed water park and restaurant on the north Corniche. “We have received numerous phone calls asking why the event hasn’t happened,” Wail Samir, the resort manager, told Arab News.
“I understood everything to be going ahead — but learned only recently that the contracts for the deal had never been completed. I hate to disappoint the kids who have heard about the festival,” Samir said.
The Sail Island staff and in-house entertainers were making splendid efforts with the crowds of lively young customers who seemed to shrug off their disappointment by a liberal application of ice-cream.
At the Jeddah Science and Technology Museum, the planned star show using a planetary projector was conspicuous by its absence. The personable receptionist informed us in a confidential whisper that the machine was still in Taif. “It will be here in four or five days, Inshallah.”
Providing an antidote to this series of non-events is the JCCI’s frantically busy Wail Al-Yamani. Just one of his special areas of responsibility is the logistics behind the most public of all the festival events, the firework displays.
“Moving the trailer and equipment across country has presented its special problems,” he said, our conversation punctuated by other rapid-fire telephone conversations and instructions. “The final straw came when I received a phone call at two in the morning from the drivers, lost in Taif. I had to drive there and guide them and tons of equipment to Jeddah and make sure it was parked and secured properly,” Wail said.
As a result, the fireworks that marked the climax of the opening ceremony started on time to the minute.
