Huge tent for Song for Europe festival

The contract for the tent which will house the Song for Europe festival at Ta' Qali was awarded to Sign-It Limited, who have roped in the help of two German companies to set up the largest tent of its kind in Malta.

It has a span of 40 metres and occupies an area larger than Freedom Square.

The tent goes beyond any other set up outdoors and is fully climate-controlled and comes complete with 4,000 seats, toilets, a massive foyer, dressing rooms and all the works.

Reuben Caruana, managing director of Sign-It, who won the contract following a public call for tenders, said the tent would need three mammoth generators, which are being provided by General Electric, to power the entire system.

This was announced yesterday at a news conference at the Radisson SAS Baypoint where Maltasong also signed a partnership agreement with Island Hotels Group.

The agreement was signed between Maltasong chairman Charlò Bonnici and Winston Zahra Jr., director of operations of the Island Hotels Group.

Speaking on the shift from the festival's usual venue, the Mediterranean Conference Centre to Ta' Qali, Mr Bonnici said the idea had been in gestation for the past two months.

Each year the organising committee was having to face the complaints of people who found no tickets for the festival, so they felt it was time to move on.

Last year a furore erupted after people complained that an organised group had laid their hands on all the tickets available to the public.

People had queued up at 1.30 a.m. the night before the tickets went on sale and there was none left by the morning.

The new venue should finally stop this annual problem since the tent can take up to 4,000 people compared with the 1,200 who can squeeze into the MCC.

Mr Bonnici said the shift was a great challenge for the committee since everything now had to be organised on an amplified scale.

The site chosen for the festival, which will be held on February 7-8, is the area between the Meridiana Wine Estate and the Ta' Qali picnic area.

Sign-It Limited has decided to keep the tent in place for up to six months, since it would have been "absurdly expensive" to rent such a tent just for a two-day festival.

The company is hoping to exploit the space for large-scale conferences and other similar events.

When pushed to give an indication of the price involved, Maltasong deputy chairman John Bundy said that such a tent could be rented out for more than Lm75,000 without any seating or facilities.

Mr Bonnici interjected and said that had the tent been brought over just for the festival, it would have been completely unafforable.

Asked if the cost would be reflected in the price of tickets, Mr Bonnici replied that the tickets were cheaper than last year, starting from Lm4 and running up to Lm10.

Meanwhile, Mr Bonnici also announced that this year televoting during the festival had been upped by 10 per cent, providing the public with the power of 50 per cent of the overall vote.

Apart from this there will be five international judges who will have the remaining 50 per cent.

"This decision was taken in the light of the fact that the Eurovision Song Contest uses a 100 per cent televoting system," Mr Bonnici said.

Last year, the high percentage of televoting had led to an aggressive campaign with contestants lobbying for votes.

Many had been sceptical that the 40 per cent would sway the result of the jury, but the system proved it could work after Ira Losco had received unanimous backing from both the public and the jury.

Tickets for this year's festival, which will be presented by popular television presenters Gianni Zammit and Mireille Bonello, go on sale on January 22.