Elton John Concert review
by DestinationTenerifeStrong winds of up to 70km an hour for the whole of the week leading up to the event meant organisers faced a huge production headache.
And it was touch and go, even on the morning of the concert, whether it would be allowed to go ahead because of real safety and security concerns. However, luck was on Elton John’s side when the weather suddenly turned for the better.
Promoters Canarias Live Sun Festival revealed their dilemma during an interview with Tenerife News when voiced put a number of criticisms to them about the organisation of the concert.
But director of production, Dario Morra, whilst accepting they would learn from some of the issues, said they personally had received nothing but praise and wanted to remain totally positive about the whole undertaking.
He also revealed they were already in talks to bring further top acts to Tenerife both in 2008 and 2009 and felt their mission - to put the island on the international map - had been achieved for all the right reasons.
They were particularly thrilled that Elton John and his producer had both expressed their admiration for Tenerife, the audience at the concert and the way it had been staged.
Sr. Morra said it had been a “Titanic” undertaking because of the atrocious weather which meant they had to take emergency action and build a 15m high safety wall around the entire stage area. People had worked around the clock for days and nights to make sure it could go ahead and he wanted to congratulate all the crews and everyone else involved.
They understood there had been complaints about people not getting in to the concert in time and not being able to sit in their allocated seats but said some 5,000 ticket holders had converged on the gate in the last 15 minutes. There had not been more entrances on the request of Elton John’s production company. Next time, he said, they would advise people to come much, much earlier, even two hours before, to avoid a repeat of the situation.
Sr. Morra said they could not understand that people who had paid for expensive seats could not find anywhere else to sit as they had photographic evidence of seats being free on the site. He also felt that those who clambered on to the top of the toilets might have damaged the lighting inside the cubicles. Any talk of having a firework display had been negated earlier in the week because of the weather. The one priority had been to make sure the show went ahead.
Letters to some newspapers have suggested that one or two people might have been hurt in the crush to get in but Sr. Morra said he did not think this was the case. In fact, they were thrilled that the event had passed without incident and that everyone had been kept safe. He said he did not want to enter into dialogue through the press about individual complaints but promised they would look at any if they were made formally.
He felt people were still talking, internationally, about the Elton John concert in Tenerife for all the right reasons. Half of the 20,000-strong crowd were tourists, he said, which achieved what they had set out to do - to put Tenerife on the map.
He felt the site at Golf Costa Adeje had been absolutely marvellous and had no concerns about traffic management. The course was back in use three days afterwards and all rubbish and litter had been cleared by the next morning.
He also pointed out that Elton John had been on stage, unusually, for nearly three hours and if a star of his magnitude was happy with everything, it could only spell really good news for the promotion of Tenerife as a major concert venue.
And as for any announcement about what future big names we can expect, they are on their way but it’s a case of watch this space!
(Taken from the article at Tenerife News)