MTA spends €2.7 million on Summer Daze Festival, for tourism in peak season

A group of four entertainment entrepreneurs are receiving a government subvention of at least €2.6 million a year to throw a week-long party this summer even though entrance to the festival is against a fee.

The Summer Daze Festival was conceived in the time of disgraced former tourism minister Konrad Mizzi and is being held again this year at the Ta’ Qali National Park with the Malta Tourism Authority footing a significant part of the bill.

Information on how the direct order for 356 Entertainment Group is being handled by the ministry, now under Minister Clayton Bartolo, emerged in a National Audit Office report published this week.

The report mentions how the International Radio Festival held in 2018 at the Granaries in Floriana had been stopped over irregularities in the use of public funds made available for the concert.

It also notes how the agreement between the MTA and 356 Entertainment which covers the organisation, management and promotion of the Summer Daze Festival.

“Budget for this event was set at €2.692 million (VAT excluded) and all the payments made were in line with this amount,” the NAO report states.

Sources at the MTA told The Shift that while the businessmen behind this event had already been receiving millions from the MTA for other parties and events, the sum quoted for last year’s Summer Daze party was “astronomical” and “totally unnecessary”.

“The MTA is meant to support the industry and not make certain businessmen millionaires. Can the minister explain why he needs to spend €2.7 million of public funds to attract tourists to Malta in the peak season?” one senior tourism operator asked.

The Summer Daze festival, which includes satellite parties at other venues including one at the Uno Village club in Ta’ Qali owned by the same businessmen, is held in Santa Marija week in mid-August.

Apart from the multimillion-euro government deal, the organisers also charge €10 a head for entry, receive hefty sponsorships from the private sector and sell millions of euros worth of food, drink and other goods and services.

Set up in 2015, 356 Entertainment Group Limited is owned equally by four different companies.

Trevor Camilleri, under the name of Twenty-Two Twelve Ltd, is the main face of the business. He has been organising parties for several years and is involved in other businesses including the thriving Veduta restaurant family business in Rabat.

His partners are 1978 Holdings Ltd, owned by Gerald Debono, Est1985 Co Ltd, owned by Nicholas Spiteri and Zat Investments Ltd owned by Edward Zammit Tabona and his sister Francesca Manduca.

In a recently-published interview, Trevor Camilleri boasted about how the company has become “one of the island’s leading events companies offering clients anything from events management and logistics to talent booking and marketing”.

Describing last year’s Summer Daze festival as a “historic event hosting 60,000 people over two huge events,” he thanked everyone involved, “especially 356 Entertainment, Visit Malta (MTA), Bold Bishop and all local suppliers who made part of it in any way.”