Some US$3M garnered from CWC ticket sales
By Miranda La Rose
Stabroek News
April 13, 2007
Just over US$3 million was garnered from ticket sales for the six Super Eight matches in the CWC 2007 tournament, held at the Guyana National Stadium at Providence from March 28 to April 9, 2007.
Some 50,000 tickets were sold before and during the tournament, some of which the government paid for when it decided to sponsor some 3,000 schoolchildren.
Meanwhile, the Local Organising Committee (LOC) of Trinidad has reported that the receipts from the sale of tickets for its pre-super eights matches were about TT$9 million or US$1.5 million.
The Providence stadium has the capacity to seat 14,800 persons in the various stands and another 4,000 in the grass mound and party stand. The stadium was built at a cost of US$25 million and additional sums were spent on developing the external environment. How much Guyana forked out to host the games and the returns from ticket sales and money spent by visitors is likely to be of increasing interest.
The Guyana LOC has paid the Paris-headquartered overlay company GL Events some $200 million (US$1 million) in contractual fees for work completed, Chief Executive Officer of the LOC Karan Singh said. This included the installation of some 16 turnstiles and a number of other critical services at the stadium, including the completion of the accreditation and media centres, video board and venue graphics.
Guyana was also required to provide Information and Communications Technology (ICT) services. Though he did not provide a cost for the ICT, Singh said it might have been costly in the local sense but weighing the publicity that Guyana gained through worldwide exposure on television it was worth every dollar spent.
The fees that GL Events had been quoting to Guyana to carry out the necessary works, Singh told Stabroek News, had been a source of concern for the LOC, which was trying to maintain its budget.
The ICC CWC West Indies Inc 2007 had commissioned GL Events to carry out overlay works on the stadium. These overlay works as well as operational expenses and staffing - including volunteers and security on match days were all paid for by Cricket World Cup West Indies Inc, Singh said.
Some 90% of the revenue generated from the ticket sales goes to the host venues. Noting that ticket sales amounted to over US$3 million, Singh said, "We didn't do too badly." While the average was 8,300 per match, he said the smallest crowd, which was on the opening day of the Super Eight matches, was just about 6,000. He noted that a number of tickets were given to sponsors free of cost and these were not included on the match day attendance tally.
Generally, "as the government's miser… a cheapskate," he said, "I thought that we managed our resources well. We kept our costs down in trying to make sure that we didn't spend extra money out of the budget."
He said that operational cost of the LOC office at Middle Street, South Cummingsburg was not substantial but he was unable to quantify it.
Asked about general expenses that the LOC would have incurred to host the six matches, Singh said the LOC was still working on the figures and he hoped that would be made available today.
Meanwhile, the T&T Guardian newspaper yesterday reported that the T&T government spent TT$93 million (US$15.5 million) to host the warm-up and preliminary round matches in the CWC 2007 tournament.
The entire cost of hosting the matches in Guyana would also include the bid guarantee non-refundable sum, which the government was required to pay and other requirements. Meeting the operational costs of the LOC in keeping with the guidelines of Guyana's bid to host matches in the games and the Host Venue Agreement (HVA), which called for administrators or directors who possess experience and expertise in administration, cricket operations, tourism, ground and air transportation, security, finance and law would also be included.
According to the HVA, the LOC was to have direct access to senior public officers responsible for a wide range of key areas including customs and immigrations, national emergency management, security, traffic management, information and communications technology, tourism and sports.
The HVA identified the obligations of the LOC and the ICC CWC West Indies Inc, inclusive of the commercial rights, intellectual property rights, finances and budgets and inspections and confidentiality issues.
The government committed to meet all the costs related to stadium development, training/practice facilities, enhancement of air and seaports and provision of portable structures.
Apart from the establishment of an LOC, the various host venues were required to meet 24 "variables". These included a stable political environment, stadiums of a particular standard with the potential to host day and night matches; match day operations which required full-time staff for pitch repairs, maintenance, clean up, line marking and cleaning; an extensive volunteer programme; and a clean-up plan to meet international standards in sanitation and hygiene.
Media facilities of a certain standard were also required.
To deal with the issue of security, the LOC was required to establish a national security committee to be based on strong collaboration between the national law enforcement agencies and private security companies. Security plans included close-circuit television; and searches of vehicles and spectators entering the stadium physically and by electronic scanning. All ports of entry were to be equipped with the necessary equipment required for CWC 2007.
The other areas dealt with disaster management, medical and public health issues; the setting up of an accreditation centre to be equipped with adequate power and telecommunications capacity to contain offices for the accreditation centre manager and the ticketing manager. Transport; communications; accommodation; immigration and customs clearance; sponsor and contractual obligations; marketing support; climate and environment; ambush marketing; generic event functions and economic impact assessment were some of the other areas.