Well, hot damn. We’ve been a little bit cynical about the Show of Peace since we heard about it. You can indulge in our cynicism HERE and HERE. We were torn all the way through (no, really – we ARE into good causes and have no problems with organizers using music to draw attention to/ raise money for them). On the other hand, we were never convinced with Show of Peace’s intentions/ causes, but enough said. No more knife twisting.
We heard a couple of weeks back that the show had been “postponed”, but that the organizers were trying not to draw attention to the fact. Again, we didn’t want to write on an unconfirmed rumor (who, us?), and we didn’t want to reverse over the twitching corpse, but thankfully, the Beijinger has done the reversing for us. They went to ZZXY for an update, and were told that:
“With the agreement of Ministry of Culture, the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries (CPAFFC) and the organizers of the International Show of Peace Concert have discussed and decided to change the date of the concert to October 10, 2010 – 10/10/10.”
Are we surprised? Not really. Do we think the 10/10 date will go forward. Well, you certainly need to give ZZXY some credit for perseverance, but seriously – these guys need (by our estimates) US$15-20m in sponsorship to make this happen, and we’ve had no small experience in working with brands here in China. They just don’t hand over thatkind of money lightly, and without sponsorship, this just isn’t going to happen.
Anyway, hope springs eternal. Happy weekend everyone!