What made Flatley's Cliffs of Moher show stumble?

Plans to stage Michael Flatley’s ‘Lord of Dance’ at the Cliffs of Moher have come undone. The event’s promoter blames the bleak economic landscape

IT HAD all the makings of a spectacular end-of-summer show. Michael Flatley's Lord of the Danceextravaganza has been a worldwide box-office hit since it debuted in Dublin in 1996. Match that audience-friendly dance show with the iconic and breathtaking Cliffs of Moher, on the edge of the Atlantic Ocean, and you would think you'd have a winner on your hands. What could possibly go wrong?

But this week the proposed Lord of the Danceshows in Co Clare on September 1st and 2nd, planned as part of a tourism package called the Edge of the World Experience, were called off. Despite a huge promotional campaign, which included a significant tourism drive, the organisers, MPO Promotions, were forced to postpone the event and refund ticket-holders. There was disappointment all round, not only among fans who had bought tickets for the shows but also within Clare County Council, which had invested €50,000 in the event.

The lord of the dance, too, was disappointed. "It would have been a dream come true to bring Lord of the Danceto the Cliffs of Moher, one of the most spectacular locations in the world," Michael Flatley said in a statement on his website. "We are very disappointed for the thousands of ticket buyers that the show has been postponed."

The promoter behind the event, Oliver O’Connell, is a former plant-hire operator who has had “a very heavy involvement in Irish music” over 30 years, through shows and tours in Co Clare and elsewhere. One of his previous events was a performance by The Chieftains at Ennis Cathedral in 2009.

“I approached Unicorn Entertainment and sold them the idea,” O’Connell says. “They thought it was incredible because it was a most unusual event. Everyone knows about the Cliffs of Moher, but something like this had never been done there before. I was pleased to have secured the show.”

For Clare County Council, O’Connell’s event couldn’t have come at a better time. It is involved in an online campaign to have the Cliffs of Moher recognised by the New 7 Wonders of Nature website (new7wonders.com) and saw the Edge of the World Experience as an ideal way to help its cause.

"When we were approached about a concert at the Cliffs of Moher, which isn't our gig and is not on our lands, we saw that type of proposal fitted perfectly into our campaign," says Ger Dollard, the director of services with the council. "While both projects were totally separate, they complemented each other very well. On that basis, we made an assessment that a high-profile event at the Cliffs of Moher with Michael Flatley and Lord of the Danceis going to attract a lot of publicity and that publicity could help our seven-wonders campaign."

The council invested its €50,000 on a phased basis; Dollard believes they got major “bang for their buck” on several fronts. “We got the publicity and we also got a very professionally prepared event-management plan, with traffic management and evacuation procedures and everything else. That’s there now as a template, and if we ever wanted to have an event at the Cliffs of Moher, all the groundwork on the logistics has been done for us.”

Dollard says the event-management plan was compiled by Dudley Stewart, an engineer who is “an expert in health and safety”.

“He had FBI students helping out, who were here as part of their programme,” says Dollard. “They participated in measuring how many buses were needed and how long it would take to get to Lahinch from the cliffs if we had to evacuate 5,000 people in pitch darkness.”

Oliver O’Connell says that ticket sales for the show, priced at €75, were healthy, with 3,000 tickets for the two 5,000-capacity shows sold before the plug was pulled.

“All the tickets for major events this summer have been sold in the last two weeks leading up to the event, so it was never an issue around tickets. We had 3,000 tickets sold and we had tickets held back for people we knew were coming in as well.”

The problem was that O’Connell had to pay all the costs associated with the event in advance, and he just hadn’t enough cash or couldn’t get enough credit to foot these bills from his suppliers.

"We had to pay for everythingupfront," he says. "I mean, everything. If we took out an ad in a local paper, we had to pay for it upfront before we could move on. It was substantial amounts of money because you have to build the infrastructure to allow an event like this to go on. The staging rig was coming in from London, and they had to have a cheque cleared before they even loaded the truck. We were expected to fund that and wait for our ticket money until the thing was over, and that was a difficult thing to do."

O’Connell says it’s another indication of the difficulties of doing business in Ireland at the moment. “There are no risk-takers any more, and everyone has become very careful. There are no credit terms available for anyone, which makes life very difficult and hard to do any kind of business. It’s the times we live in.

“Everywhere you look in Clare, you see companies that were the flagship of tourism and employment for decades, and they are now either in liquidation or on life support. The Government and the financial institutions, once the drivers of the economy, are now hog-tied, and events like the one we had planned for the cliffs cannot be supported.”

Yet O’Connell insists that it’s not all over yet and that he will be back. “We didn’t cancel the show: we postponed it until a better time. The branding and the advertising for this have gone all over the world. Everybody knew about it. We will still deliver it.”

Cruel summer: Promoters feel the pinch

Lord of the Dancemay have been the highest-profile cancellation this summer, but Oliver O'Connell is not the only promoter feeling the pinch from the recession. While there have been in excess of 100 festivals and outdoor music shows in Ireland since May, many appear to be struggling with attendances. Last month's Oxegen festival, for example, was noticeable for swathes of empty spaces around Punchestown racecourse, despite promoter MCD Concerts claiming a turnout of over 80,000. It was also the second year in a row that Oxegen tickets were still on sale when the event began.

But, as O’Connell notes, concertgoers are now buying their tickets for shows much later in the day than used to be the case. Gone are the days of shows selling out within minutes of Ticketmaster putting tickets on sale, unless you have Take That or Kings of Leon on the bill. This makes it harder for promoters to get the word out about their events, as they now have to spend more money on advertising and promoting their shows.

A knock-on effect of a sluggish summer for live events may be fewer shows in the autumn and winter. There are, for example, currently only 23 events on sale for Dublin’s O2 between now and year’s end. While this number may increase, don’t be surprised if promoters become more cautious when it comes to putting their wallets on the line.