Cowes Week Fireworks Under Threat
Over the years, there have often been arguments about who should pay for the superb firework display that marks the end of Cowes Week, but it looks as if this year there is also some heated discussion about what should be included in the cost.
According to Cowes Online of 6 March 2009, Hampshire Police Authority is demanding special payment of £60,000 for policing the Week, and a further £30,000 for policing the firework display.
A Facebook group ‘Save Cowes Week Fireworks’ was set up earlier, in response to a story that organisers Cowes Week Ltd [edited 8 Mar 2009. Original version said 'Skandia', who no longer sponsor Cowes Week. Thanks to Peta Stuart-Hunt of PR Works for spotting the error] were unwilling to fork out for the cost of the firework display. This group is more concerned about the principle of the firework display being an essential feature of The Week than about who should run it or pay for it.
It’s over thirty years since I did Cowes Week or watched the display that rounds it off, but I have many fond memories of it. Times have changed, and even the Health & Safety Executive now considers it it to be within its bailiwick. I wonder what they’d have made of a certain officer of a yacht club which had yet to receive Royal Patronage, who bought the biggest rocket he could afford and fired it with an elevation of 45 degrees in the direction of Her Majesty’s Yacht Britannia, moored in Cowes Roads? It fell short by about 50 yards. There’s an unsubstantiated rumour that HRH the Duke of Edinburgh had to be restrained from firing one back.
Please get your facts straight before publishing your blog. Skandia ceased its sponsorship last year - this has nothing to do with Skandia not funding the fireworks; it is the organisers, Cowes Week Ltd who run the regatta.
Thanks, Peta. Just the authoritative input I needed, since I’m stuck in rural France. Until I saw the CowesOnline article, I believed that Skandia had ceased sponsoring Cowes Week. Can you tell me why Cowes Online is referring to the week as Skandia Cowes Week? That’s what confused me.
Maybe you can also add a little more detail concerning the fireworks - was the police demand for payment to cover them the straw that broke the camel’s back, or had Cowes Week Ltd already come to the conclusion that they couldn’t justify the cost?
Better still, perhaps, would be to point me to an authoritative source for everything to do with Cowes Week Ltd?
Whilst I have no idea why Cowes Online is still referring to the regatta as ‘Skandia Cowes Week’, I do know that they know full well what the score is. I was Cowes Week’s Press Officer for eight years but departed the fold last year coinciding with Skandia ceasing their title sponsorship of the regatta.
Certainly it is best if you contact the CEO of Cowes Week Ltd direct on all matters concerning the fireworks, and indeed the entire event - Stuart Quarrie - and he will be delighted to give you chapter & verse.
stuart.quarrie@cowesweek.co.uk