CLARE County Council has said it got “more than value for money” from the €50,000 it invested in an event at the Cliffs of Moher that organisers have now “postponed”.

The Edge of the World Experience, which would have seen the Lord of the Dance performed for two nights at the iconic North Clare attraction next week, was postponed this week by organisers MPO Promotions Ltd.
The company, run by Oliver O’Connell and his sons, Michael and PJ, estimated the event would have been worth in excess of €10 million to the local economy through accommodation and tourism services.
Mr O’Connell confirmed that MPO Promotions estimates that it has lost in the region of €200,000 in the venture while Clare County Council had put a further €50,000 towards the event.
“We got more than value for money in that the Lord of the Dance project and the New 7 Wonders of Nature project complemented each other. We saw the opportunity to have our efforts to get into the New 7 Wonders promoted as part of the Edge of the World investment.
“Our payments to MPO were on a phased basis and the blanket national coverage that Michael Flatley achieved in recent weeks promoting the Cliffs; that level of publicity if you were to pay for it in advertising you would see €50,000 go very quickly,” said Ger Dollard, Clare County Council Director of Service and director of Cliffs of Moher Centre Ltd.
Mr Dollard said this postponement would not deter the council from investing in or supporting similar projects in the future.
“From our point of view we more than got our share of publicity and we got a very professionally produced event management plan, which is there as a template for anyone who may wish to hold an event there in the future and that has been agreed with the gardaí, the fire service and so on,” he said.
“What we are about is trying to help and promote initiatives that are going to help economic and tourism development of the county. If someone comes forward with a proposal that would have a countywide positive impact on tourism, we will consider it.
“We don’t see this as a failed venture from our point of view. We are disappointed the Edge of the World Experience isn’t taking place because the economic benefit would have been huge but it would in no way deter us from operating a similar event in the future if the opportunity presented itself,” Mr Dollard outlined.
North Clare Councillor Joe Arkins agreed with Mr Dollard that the concert had generated huge pre-publicity for the Cliffs, which “money couldn’t buy”.
“You have to look at this as nothing ventured, nothing gained. You have to be prepared to take a risk. You can’t make a decision purely on the basis something may or may not come to fruition. If the council didn’t take the risk, people could also be critical of their failure to support local enterprise,” he said.
Councillor Arkins added it was practically impossible to put a price on Michael Flately’s support for the Cliffs’ bid and claimed the world-renowned dancer came on board the campaign due to his involvement in the concert.

Lack of credit hits Edge of the World

A LACK of credit was blamed for the cancellation of an event which organisers hoped would bring about 20,000 people to Clare next weekend.
The Edge of the World Experience with Lord of the Dance at The Cliffs of Moher was due to take place on September 1 and 2 but was postponed at the weekend.
“The decision to postpone the event is probably one of the toughest decisions I ever had to take because when you take a decision to smash the dreams of 4,000 or so people it is a big decision but it was a brave decision on my part to try to attempt it too. As of Wednesday evening 88% of ticket sales had been refunded but I would expect that to be 100% by Thursday morning,” Oliver O’Connell of MPO Promotions, organisers of the event, told The Clare Champion.
“The concert was not cancelled. It is postponed,” Mr O’Connell stated. “We will do it again. It is postponed because we ran out of time to get the stage in from the UK and while we had a cash short fall on this side, the ticket sales were there but we couldn’t access that money at this time,” he said.
“We have lost about €200,000 between time spent and borrowed money. MPO Promotions is a business and the first year of a business is the most difficult, everyone knows that. We have the credibility in that we brought it to the line and we will be back. While we have to regroup and explore our options, because of the overwhelming support received over the past few days, we now find there is a groundswell of goodwill for our courage in trying to stage what would have been the most awesome spectacle ever seen in the county,” Mr O’Connell stated.
The principal cause of the concert postponement, Mr O’Connell said, was “the difficult trading conditions in Ireland at present where credit is non-existent, where risk-taking is frowned on and the total lack of confidence permeating throughout the business community.”
“I have been asked did we not have a business plan. Of course we did, of course. But I’m sure Sean Quinn had a great business plan and Hogan Motors and Bernard McNamara too, but the country doesn’t have a business plan. This was a brave undertaking to try to bring Lord of the Dance to the Cliffs but we need to do this type of thing for this county. We need to do something dramatic to raise the morale of the people, and that is what I was trying to do and I feel the county needs more people like me,” Mr O’Connell said.
“The business climate here, there are no risk takers or entrepreneurial spirit. We wanted to change that, we felt it would be an awesome spectacle and the possibility of doing it is still there. We brought this to the line. We did the hard work. We had managed the health and safety side of things. We had a whole template in place for that. We were bringing people to a place where there are narrow roads, where there are cliffs and where we have the busiest tourist roads in the country and the gardaí and emergency services were happy with it,” he added.
Mr O’Connell said that Michael Flatley offered “to do the two shows free of charge” and that he was grateful for this and the support of Clare County Council and numerous other local groups who had got behind the project.
“County Clare and The Cliffs of Moher have been marketed and branded around the world. You couldn’t buy that and it is still ongoing. It was on several Australian television channels recently and is currently being promoted in Germany. There is a German film crew coming over to the Cliffs next week and that is only happening because we tried this,” Mr O’Connell said.
Fine Gael Senator Martin Conway expressed his shock at the postponement of the event. “I hope this sudden cancellation does not negatively affect the Cliffs of Moher’s chances of becoming one of the Seven Wonders of Nature,” he stated.
Meanwhile, Councillor Joe Arkins saluted Mr O’Connell’s efforts to bring Lord of the Dance to the popular North Clare tourist attraction.
“I salute Oliver O’Connell who ‘dared to dream’. We need more people in Clare who have the courage to have a dream and go out and put their name to a new proposal. We need a lot more Oliver O’Connells and people who have good ideas in this county. Oliver has spent about 18 months promoting this venture and has spent a lot of money. It would have probably have succeeded if he had sought about €5,000 from a lot of small investors. It may be possible to do this at a future date,” he said.