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Dance events for tourism
Jason Paul, co-founder of Kick Promotions, talks to Blanche
Gatt about his view on the importance of the entertainment industry
to the Maltese economy
The recent Sottovoce Festival organised by Kick Promotions
attracted nearly 15,000 young people to the Ta’ Qali site,
to dance, drink and socialise under the stars. Massive events
like this have become a deep-rooted part of young people’s
entertainment scene, and though some express concerns about
issues like drug abuse and the consequent fear of fatalities,
they continue to grow in popularity.
I recently met Jason Paul, co-founder of Kick Promotions, who
explained that his ambitions for these events is to turn them
into international party-goer attractions, thereby boosting
local tourism and concurrently benefiting the whole of the Maltese
economy.
“Today Ibiza and Agia Napa are the two major party destinations
for young Europeans,” he explained, “but how did this
start? Very simply, the two biggest music magazines in Europe,
Muzik and Mixmag, a promoter and two DJs started writing and
talking about parties on Ibiza. If you look at the cover of
Mixmag today, there’s
a photo and a cover line related
to Ibiza and the young people
flock there, or to Agia Napa
which has become the ‘alternative’ destination.”
Jason believes Malta has the potential to divert many of these
to come here instead – but the conditions should be right.
“First of all,” he said, “Malta can offer a more
attractive alternative, apart from having beautiful beaches
naturally. In 1991, before Ibiza took off, Malta was at least
five years ahead. But then these two DJs, Paul Oakenfield and
Danny Rampling, who worked with BBC Radio started promoting
the island, and now Ibiza programmes are broadcast 24 hours
a day on TV and radio. But if we want to attract people here,
we can offer better beaches – Paradise Bay for example
is one of the most beautiful beaches in the world.”
One of Malta’s greatest strengths, Jason believes, is its
strict anti-drug police squad and legislation. “This is
something Ibiza does not have,” he added, “and in
fact, as a result, Ibiza is starting to lose the quality people
to Agia Napa, where they do have strict anti-drug laws. What
happened was that when the Cypriot government saw that their
tourist industry was flagging and that they had a lot of empty
hotels and other tourist-related outlets they began working
with two promoters, like us. The government wanted to fill these
places but did not want to tolerate drugs. The place is now
beginning to take over from Ibiza in popularity.”
In fact, Malta’s strict police regulations mean that parties
such as the Sottovoce Festival are required to have a heavy
police presence, checking each entrant for ID cards and illegal
drugs. “Our police bill for the festival came to around
Lm1,200,” said Jason. “I don’t mind paying as
long as there is safety, but the reputation that such parties
have of encouraging drug abuse is unfair. Statistics show that
in the past two years there have been two fatal overdoses in
parties. Over the same period, there have been over 500 incidents
of overdoses reported in hospital, some of which were fatal,
and none of which were connected to the entertainment industry.”
Jason says he welcomes tougher regulations on safety. “Before
the new laws came into force it was unheard of to have an ambulance
at an event – promoters were afraid if they were the only
ones with an ambulance outside their venue it would alarm people
– but now it is the law and you have to do it, so this
was a great help. I have already seen the benefit; we had an
ambulance outside during the festival and five people who got
asthma attacks could be looked after immediately.”
“We can do in Malta the same thing as Agia Napa has done,”
Jason insists. “But our government clearly has no idea
how to attract the younger generation of tourists, other than
English language students. Now it would be the perfect time
to start up a drive in this direction. We have all the right
contacts with the BBC TV and Radio, and we know that Rampling
and Oakenfield are finding that the Spanish are now getting
greedy and with the right conditions, Malta could step in at
this point.”
The reason Malta should be doing this, Jason believes, is that
our traditional tourists are
getting older and beginning to die off rapidly. “There
is no doubt that Maltese tourism is in crisis,” he said,
“but nothing concrete is being done to avert it. In the
meantime, the hotels are suffering, the shops are suffering
and in the end the entire Maltese economy is suffering. We can
bring young people who want to spend their money in the local
outlets, who want to have fun, go to the beach, relax and go
shopping, and who also want some buzzing nightlife for the evening.
This is not the kind of tourist who comes in on half-board and
barely spends a penny outside his hotel.” Jason’s
feeling is that young party-goers are high-spending tourists,
who already pay entrance fees between £35 and £45
each to get into Ibiza clubs like Club Ibiza, and pay prices
of around Lm4-5 for soft drinks, Lm8-9 for alcohol and Lm4 for
water once they are inside. “Here in Malta we are still
charging the same price of Lm2.50 for club entrance as we did
10 years ago. At big parties, tickets are priced around Lm10
because the local market cannot afford the higher prices that
are charged abroad. At paying events we get around 4,000 attending,
though at free events like the Sottovoce Festival, we get 15,000”
One of the major setbacks Jason sees to developing the island
as a party-destination is the fact that the new legislation
of open-air events forces them to close down at 2am. “This
2am open-air curfew, when you’re over 500 metres away from
all neighbourhoods, is unheard of all over the world,”
he said. “How can we expect a 9 to 5 worker from England,
who goes out clubbing till 10am at clubs like the Ministry of
Sound, to come here on holiday and have to go to bed at 2 or
at 4? These curfews are curtailing our opportunity to attract
the young generation, and the irony is that though the music
has to stop,
and people have to stop danc-
ing, they can still go on drinking. So, is music more dangerous
than alcohol?”
As young Maltese people all over the island get themselves ready
for what has become the traditional Santa Marija week round
of events, Jason is still dealing with the bills from the Sottovoce
event. “In all it cost around Lm46,000 to organise,”
he said. “This is an annual free event that I organise
once a year, for charity, and also to reward my members for
their loyalty through the year. Last year we did the Lovesexy
Festival, which was an enormous success, and this year it was
Sottovoce. Because it was free, obviously costs had to be covered,
and the way we cover them is from the bars. But our prices are
still exactly the same prices as at clubs. What we do is we
sell token booklets for drinks, and there are various prices,
depending on the event. They range from Lm3 – Lm6 per booklet.
The tokens in the booklet are then used as currency to obtain
drinks from the bars.”
While one of the heftier bills is for foreign artists contracted
to entertain the crowds, the police bill, mentioned earlier,
is also a substantial one. “I don’t mind paying it,
on the contrary I am glad to have the strong police presence
keeping an eye on things,” said Jason, “but I don’t
feel that all policemen are worth paying for. For example, I
ordered 30 policemen, but they sent only 27. I am charged for
their time from 2pm – half of them were gone by 4pm. They
still charged me for the full amount, though. They were stopping
every person who came into the venue for their ID card,
however, a ridiculous situation occurred when Claudette Pace
was stopped.” Jason’s problem seems to be with the
lower-rank policemen who are posted on duty to the events. “We
have had a big helping hand from various officers,” he
said, “and I want to thank the Asst. Commissioner Michael
Cassar, Asst. Comm. Abela, the Superintendent from Birkirkara
and Mosta Superintendent Mula for their help. It’s the
lower ranks who have let me down by leaving early or drinking
on duty, and so on.”
Organising events is now Jason’s full-time occupation,
and together with his partner Brian Azzop-
ardi, Kick Promotions organises a weekly party at Paradise Bay,
as well as other regular events in clubs and two or three major
events like the Sottovoce and Lovesexy Festivals a year. Their
events sometimes involve partnering with other promoters, as
for example, when David Darmanin and the StartUp Malta university
student organisation teamed up with them to attract different
crowds to various parties.
The crowd Jason would most like to see at his events, however,
is the Ibiza or Agia Napa crowd. “And we can do it, with
the right support,” he said in conclusion. “In March
1998 we organised a feature on Malta in DJ Magazine. All it
cost us was two flights for an editor and a photographer, and
we got a fantastic two-page spread and an insert in the front
page. It cost nothing, yet it was very effective. Unfortunately,
when we tried to get some support from the MTA to bring these
people over again in summer, they said they could not give free
AirMalta flights in summer because there was no space. This
would have got us the perfect coverage to boost our tourism
industry, and I think it was a mistake. But we have other contacts,
and with the right support, I believe we have all the right
elements to turn Malta into the most popular young people’s
destination.”
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