EU accession celebrations contract 'confirmed'

The Contracts Committee has confirmed the award of the Lm300,000 EU accession celebrations tender to Welcomeurope, Lou Bondì, the consortium's chairman, said yesterday.

The confirmation came after the appeals board of the Contracts Department heard an appeal filed by the unsuccessful bidder, Pres consortium.

Welcomeurope is made up of Where's Everybody?, Nexox, NnG Promotions and Sign It Ltd.

Celebrations will include concerts and various spectacles by local talent as well as by artists of international repute.

The climax of celebrations will be reached close to midnight on April 30 with spectacular shows.

The first part will consist of a projection show on Fort St Angelo bastions by the UK light artist Ross Ashton. Mr Ashton has worked on various projects of an international calibre and one of his best shows consisted of projections on Buckingham Palace on the occasion of the Queen's Jubilee.

The second part of the spectacle will be in the hands of Gert Hof whose various pyrotechnic displays will create a "light monument" in the sky.

Mr Hof was commissioned by the governments of China, Hungary and Germany to organise displays for their millennium shows.

Pink Floyd's Roger Waters will take the opportunity of the accession celebrations to launch a world premier of a recording of an opera he has just composed.

The European Broadcasting Union will be presenting a programme showing excerpts of the spectacles organised by the 10 countries.

Mr Bondì said Welcomeurope's spectacle has been chosen by the EBU as the best from among the 10 and, therefore, would be transmitted during the peak of the programme.

It is expected that the programme will be followed by between 750 million and a billion viewers on television.