Report on Indonesian Open

Report on Indonesian Open

As the promoter of the 1996 Sony Badminton Indonesia Open in
Medan, I feel obliged to respond to various inaccuracies in your
criticism of the local Organizing Committee. Firstly, there was
no "lack of spectators" as evidenced by near-capacity crowds on
the last three days of the event.

In fact, nearly 1,000 paying fans were turned away on the
final evening as it was a complete sell-out with over 4,000
persons. Your article stated that there were "almost no
promotional banners up in Medan", but it is a fact that over 600
banners were erected around Medan.

The event was also publicized on RCTI, in various newspaper
ads and a "Meet the Players" event at Medan Mall on Aug. 24 and
25 drew crowds of over 1,500 each day.

As far as the poor treatment of the press, it is a fact that
many press people, including your reporter, were provided with
round trip airfares to Medan.

The press room at the stadium was well equipped with
computers, printers, TV, telephone lines, etc. and many press
commented to me that this was one of the best press rooms outside
of Jakarta. As far as press seating, many folding chairs were
specially erected near the court to allow close access for
reporters.

Indeed, there were various problems which occurred and this
was not totally unexpected as the local Organizing Committee had
never hosted a major international badminton event before.

However, the problems as portrayed by your paper were greatly
exaggerated and even false. As the Indonesia Badminton
Association is trying to bring world-class badminton to all
Indonesians in cities other than Jakarta, I would hope that The
Jakarta Post would report in a more accurate and positive manner.

Mark Adams

Jakarta

Note: Our reporter had been trying to get a comments from
the local OC officials but received "No comment".