FOREWORD
BUCHAREST OPENS ITS HEART AT THE HALLOWEEN BALL

November 2005

People’s Palace, Bucharest
The second largest building in the world
1989: a dictator’s fantasy
2005: an icon of change

read the t-shirt, and time will tell if the building really does become an icon of change. Let’s hope so, because it has just hosted Romania’s largest ever fundraiser, not to mention the party of the year. The two broad aims of the Halloween Charity Ball – to raise enough money for Ovidiu Rom’s ‘Gata, Dispus, si Capabil’ (eng: Ready, Willing & Able) programs to continue, and heighten awareness of the necessity of an intelligent approach to donating to charity – were achieved. A net result of 113,000 euros is an amazing first-up effort and we are already looking forward to Halloween 2006.
Planning an event of this magnitude you begin with the most important aspect and work backwards. First and foremost we had to secure a venue and the world’s second largest building is difficult to overlook, particularly when it is right on your doorstep. All our experiences with Palatul Parlamentului were exemplary – there was nothing stolen, the security staff was completely fair and never overbearing, there were no electrical faults. Other comparable venues in the West might not have coped so well, and been so polite, professional and friendly at the same time.

Next came sound and lights and staging, and who better but Sandu Calin’s team at Stage Expert to deal with that? They were utterly professional, coping equally well with the challenge of dealing with the acoustics of the gargantuan Unirii Hall as with the different and subtle demands of an array of speakers from the Prime Minister downwards, to Loredana to Brad Vee to DJ Arabu. Catering too was crucial, and we were lucky to have the Athenee Palace Hilton, the Crowne Plaza and Balthazar providing excellent service and advice throughout.

Media for an event such as this is vitally important, and Pro TV saw to it that the plight of Romania’s poorest people would no longer be ignored, by broadcasting a documentary featuring a visit made by Cristi Tabara to an impoverished Roma community located on the outskirts of Buhusi, in the country’s northeast; given Pro TV’s dominance of the airwaves, the film couldn’t help but plant a seed of consciousness amongst its millions of viewers. Pro TV was excellent throughout; it gave extensive airtime to the cause and to Ovidiu Rom’s founder Leslie Hawke and her son Ethan while he was here, and provided personalities like Andreea Esca, Teo Trandafir and Andi Moisescu to take to the stage at the People’s Palace. Furthermore, the event and the party received further promotion via the publications and the radio stations in the Media Pro empire. Our non-Media Pro media partners – Bucharest Daily News, Business Review, Clubbing Mag, Cosmopolitan and Sapte Seri were all magnificent too and many thanks to those publications in which post-Ball articles have already appeared. Vivid’s cover girl and Questionnaire interviewee this month, Alexandra Tinjala, and her agency Sister were the creative energy behind the advertising campaign and they too were great.

I’ve heard Leslie Hawke referring to the Halloween Ball as a “grand community effort,” one in which Bucharest society mobilised first by grasping the importance of the issue at hand, then following up with decisive action in the best way it knew. Bucharest is in the process of reinventing itself as an exciting, energetic society with a vitality all its own, and alongside Pro TV were many companies whose contribution to the new Bucharest has been apparent since their first trading day - companies like Amsterdam Grand Cafe, Connex, Rompetrol and Zapp spring immediately to mind. Present too were wholly or majority owned or run Romanian companies, such as Balthazar, Class, Flanco, Halewood and Publirom who obviously understood the importance of giving but for whom the tradition might not have been as firmly entrenched as in their Western counterparts. They are a shining example for their many thousands of local and international partners and customers.

There hasn’t been an opportunity to thank certain individuals publicly so let me remedy that now. The honorary committee and the organising committee spent many hours in preparation but of them, three people stand out – Tara Anderson, Maria Apostol and Alexandra Tinjala. The Halloween Ball might still have been successful, but it definitely wouldn’t have been as much fun. Multumesc!