Floriade: Was it worth it?
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 22 November 2022
⏱️ 18 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Floriade is one of the world's biggest gardening and horticulture expos - and it has cost taxpayers in the Dutch city of Almere nine times as much as originally budgeted.
So why did organisers go ahead with the project, and was it still worth it – despite hugely disappointing visitor numbers?
Matthew Kenyon talks to advocates and critics of an event which may be the last of its kind in the Netherlands. Presented and produced by Matthew Kenyon.
(Image: Floriade. Image credit: BBC)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | From the colour and the drama to the sounds and the stories. World Football in Qatar is the |
| 0:06.5 | podcast from the BBC World Service taking you behind the scenes of the World Cup. Throughout the |
| 0:12.6 | tournaments, we're meeting the teams, their fans and the people in Qatar, capturing the stories |
| 0:18.2 | and the passion of the nations who are making this competition so exciting. |
| 0:22.9 | For a truly global take on the World Cup, just search for World Football in Qatar, |
| 0:28.2 | wherever you get your BBC podcasts. |
| 0:34.9 | This is Business Daily on the BBC World Service. |
| 0:38.4 | I'm Matthew Kenyon, once again at the Florida, |
| 0:41.8 | the huge horticultural show that's been running for the last six months or so in the Netherlands. |
| 0:47.0 | It's just come to an end. |
| 0:48.8 | But whatever the merits and impact of the exhibition, |
| 0:52.6 | and those who organised it are passionate in its defense, |
| 0:56.4 | attention has been focused on the numbers. |
| 0:59.3 | Let's say the number of visitors were very disappointing. |
| 1:02.6 | And that's actually the main reason for the huge deficit. |
| 1:06.6 | The dominant story always has been money, money and money. |
| 1:10.4 | Almeira is new, and and money. Almere is new. |
| 1:11.8 | And we want to improve Almere. |
| 1:13.7 | So from that eye point, I like it. |
| 1:16.8 | But I'm a little bit sad that it's so much money. |
| 1:20.7 | So what's the future for these big set-piece events? |
| 1:24.3 | And can we judge them only by the balance sheet? |
... |
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