Georgian authorities to spend $27 million on concerts by foreign stars. Good or bad? Opinion

Concerts in Georgia

The Government of Georgia has announced the start of the two-year “Starring Georgia” campaign, which will host concerts by popular foreign bands and performers in Georgia.

The initiative comes from Prime Minister of Georgia, Irakli Garibashvili, and the goal is “to popularize the country and strengthen the tourist, economic and cultural potential of Georgia.”

The government has allocated 70 million lari (about $27,700,000).

Concerts will be held mainly in the Black Sea Arena near Batumi, but some will take place in Tbilisi.

Imagine Dragons, The Killers, Nile Rodgers & Chic and others are expected to take part.

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This initiative caused a mixed reaction in Georgian society. Many consider it unjustified to spend such money on foreign stars, when many in Georgia live below the absolute poverty line.

Beso Namchavadze, an analyst at Transparency International Georgia, is among the opponents of this “squandering”, and says:

“In no way do I agree with the financing of concerts from the budget, but those who agree with this have three main arguments:

1.It is necessary to support and promote performers of folk and other styles that are not related to pop music;

2. Not all [Georgians] can afford to go abroad to the concert of famous singers, but they also want to hear them;

3. development of tourism;

But the 70 million lari allocated by the government for concerts does not fit into any of these arguments:

1. Money is spent on world famous artists who are so rich that they themselves sometimes help poor countries;

2.Today we find out that tickets for these concerts will cost from 100 to 500 lari [$40-200], so the poor will still not be able to buy them;

3.No one calculated how many tourists this 70 million would attract, and how many would have attracted if the money had been spent differently or if tax incentives had been offered to festival organizers. In addition, concerts are scheduled for August, when tourism in Georgia is already at its peak. For three summer months, tourist sites in Georgia are overloaded, and the remaining nine months suffer losses.

In fact, 70 million will be spent on:

Government PR (allegedly hard at work), free tickets for friends and family to support the money-losing Black Sea Arena, just to show that all is well in the country and we sing and dance.”

The Black Sea Arena concert hall was opened on July 31, 2016 and can accommodate up to 10,000 spectators. The construction of the hall began in 2008 at the initiative of Bidzina Ivanishvili’s Kartu Foundation. The Foundation spent about $115 million on this project, and after the completion of construction donated the Black Sea Arena to the state.

But concerts are rarely held there, so the hall is maintained mainly on budgetary funds. According to NGO Waste Detector, the Black Sea Arena operates at a loss year after year, and the state spent 29 million lari [more than $11 million] in 2017-2020 on the maintenance of the concert hall and the salaries of employees.

In 2017-2020, Black Sea Arena received subsidies from the state budget in the amount of about 33 million lari [about $13 million]; the cumulative losses of Black Sea Arena over the same years amounted to more than 18.4 million lari [more than $7 million].