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Mr President,
All public spectator sports and entertainment venues including the Hong Kong Stadium, in the urban area are managed by the Urban Council under the Urban Council Ordinance. The Urban Council has full autonomy in all matters relating to the management and hiring of these venues.
Under the Urban Council's existing arrangements, hirers of all UC venues are required to use the URBTIX system to sell tickets for events held, with the exception of the Hong Kong Stadium. There, hirers are encouraged to use the URBTIX facility but are not required to do so. The reasons for this are twofold. First, the Hong Kong Stadium is managed separately and independently by Wembley International (HK) Ltd under the supervision of the UC Board of Governors. Second, greater ticketing flexibility needs to given to hirers of the Hong Kong Stadium in view of its size, the multi-purpose usage it is intended for and the fact that in most cases the bulk of tickets sold are done at the door inmediately prior to admission.
Under the present management arrangements, there are no specific measures to safeguard consumers' interest against loss from the cancellation of events held in the Hong Kong Stadium if the hirer does not act responsibly, as the onus of making ticket refunds rests entirely with the hirer.
As regards the case in question, the hirer however did take steps to ask its ticketing agents to make refunds and the majority of ticket holders were granted appropriate refunds. However, in a small number of cases, because of a dispute arising between the hirer and one ticketing agent over commission charged, refund has been held up for the time being.
Since the occurrence of the case in question, the Chairman of the Urban Council has assured me that his Council attaches great importance to the need to provide adequate protection to ticket holders in the case of an event being cancelled in the Hong Kong Stadium. The Urban Council Board of Governors have now taken this matter up with the stadium manager, Wembley International (HK) Ltd, to consider what safeguards may be introduced to protect the interests of all parties concerned.
End/Wednesday, December 14, 1994