The Board of Technopolis decided to hold a festive event without an audience, in which Sakis Rouvas will perform for 17 minutes in the parking lot outside the Lycabettus Theatre, for New Year's Eve.
In fact, the project was allegedly awarded with a direct award of 211,000 euros plus VAT (12.4 thousand euros per minute!!!) without any further explanation of this amount and what the popular artist's fee will be.
The whole production has been undertaken by Carousel, which will also film the event and send the material to ERT for broadcast. After the end of the concert and the start of 2022, the municipality of Athens will also hold a fireworks show.
The unprecedented decision was voted down by the opposition with the Popular Coalition calling the decision «provocative».
In detail the announcement of the People's Coalition:
At a time when many people will close their homes and have to deal with situations of poverty, poverty and pandemic outbreak, the Municipality of Athens chooses to invest in expensive and spectacular spectacles on the Lycabettus Hill to celebrate the change of the year. For a television product of about 17 minutes, Technopolis will spend 211 thousand euros, plus VAT, under a direct award contract.
We are not standing on the issue of the selection of a particular artist by the production company. But it is provocative, every year, just for the change of time event, the Municipality of Athens budgets and spends more than 200 thousand euros, even this year, when there will be no spectators at all.
We believe that in order for the Municipality to inspire optimism and inspire residents, there is no need for «imposing backdrops, velvet curtains, crystal chandeliers, hundreds of lights etc.» as envisaged in the proposal of a specific company presented to us. On the contrary, this can be done with much less money and with meaningful actions based on the needs of the residents behind the facade of the city.
