With Sports Minister Stuart Ayres acting as the broker during a tense two days of negotiations,the government has also agreed that the word ‘Everest’ should be included in the projections,which will be used to promote the barrier draw for the $10 million horse race. Racing NSW had also wanted to list horse names on the Opera House sails,but that will not happen.
The agreement was secured only an hour after Opera House chief executive Louise Herron told theHeraldher organisation would not depart from its policy of not allowing logos or branding to be projected on to the World Heritage listed structure,but would ultimately do as instructed by the government.
“If we said yes to this,‘we’re fine put the Everest logo on there'our policy is worthless to us,we’re just going to allow whoever comes along to use the Opera House as a billboard,’ we would lose our World Heritage status,” Ms Herron said,about an hour before the government agreed to do almost exactly that.
“We would be seen in the global community as not respecting this jewel,this masterpiece of human creative genius that is the greatest building of the 20th Century.”
Despite the Opera House’s policy,the government retains the power to instruct it to be used for promotional purposes. When logos have been projected onto the Opera House in the past – for instance,for the Wallabies rugby team or to mark Australia’s Ashes victory – this has been done under such direction.
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Ms Berejiklian’s government offered no immediate comment on the deal. The chief executive of Racing NSW,Peter V’landys,said:“We are very grateful to the NSW Government and Sydney Opera House for their support. We look forward to promoting Sydney internationally via the world’s richest race on turf – The Everest.”