Should We Consider A Public-Private Partnership For ConCon?

[Daniel de Gracia II]

Recently, some people have balked at the prospect of having to pay $11 million dollars to host a ConCon, or according to State Sen. Gary Hooser (D-Kauai, Niihau), upwards of $20 million dollars. Not that I'm a big fan of spending taxpayer money, but what's the big deal over the cost of a ConCon when the Legislature seemed to have no problem blowing $59 million to widen a itsy bitsy road in West Oahu, and we're about to dish out $6 billion dollars for the proposed Honolulu steel wheel on steel rail project, and we hear so many Democrats saying "What's a little cash here and there, huh? It's only $6 billion dollars!"

Here's my suggestion, and I mean this as reverently and respectfully as possible: why not make the ConCon a PPP where we fund it using private advertising dollars? This is America, isn't it? What's so wrong with a little commercialism? In that sense it'd almost be like the Olympics: we could host the ConCon in a nice five-diamond hotel, put the delegates in hotel rooms, and they wear Team ConCon outfits which feature the brands of all the sponsors. Coverage of the event would likewise have lots of commercials, and the official ConCon Committee Report would have the sponsor logos on them at the bottom. There would be an aggressive marketing campaign to get people to tune in and watch, and to add an extra zinger, each night we'd have a ConCon ceremony which would include performances by recognizable entertainers, celebrities, airshows, et cetera which the general public can buy tickets to.

So what if the ConCon has an official sports drink, official shoes, official hotel, official cell phone, official wireless company, and lots of product placement? The thing would pay for itself, don't you think?

[Kaunaloa]

many [most?] folks tend to balk at having government things sponsored -- it brings to mind conflict of interest issues immediately.

is it worth saving the taxpayers, say, 6 million [i.e. ~1/2 the cost -- we've discussed this before, there's no frakking way the thing costs 20 mil. with any semblence of controls on the expenses, 10-12 mil. makes much, much more sense] in exchange for seeing time warner, hilo hattie, b.o.h., hawaiian air, or any one of a dozen other logos plastered all over the site, media, and official publications? to put it another way, is the tangible cost that is avoided worth the intangible cost of treating the event like a U.H. game? initially i would say "no" but i might be persuaeded otherwise ...

[Daniel de Gracia II]

I think possibly the nearest comparison to this is how the big medical association conferences are funded ... at those events the brands of GSK, Pfizer, Bayer, etc are plastered all over the place and appear on everything from the cocktail napkins all the way up to, as suggested earlier, even the administrative paperwork. As long as the sponsors don't actually have a say in the voting and actual technical aspects of the ConCon, I think it might not be too bad.

It's obviously as you said something that is a little awkward, but I figure if you can get $11 million dollars written off because you have corporate sponsors, that's so much better than using taxpayer money. We can probably all agree ConCon delegates wearing jumpsuits covered with corporate flair like NASCAR drivers might be a little too much, but at the minimum you could have a really classy looking outfit, and put a couple of conservatively sized and not too embarrasingly placed logos on there, that wouldn't be so bad. They could have multiple outfits for different occasions at the ConCon (example: "resort casual" for conferencing might be polo by Lacoste, optional windbreaker jacket by Lacoste, slacks by Tommy Hilfiger, socks by Banana Republic, shoes by Kenneth Cole for men; DKNY for women, sunglasses by Oakley, digital wristwatch by Tag Heuer, ConCon commemorative ring by Josten's). Of course the delegates would be featured regularly on television with some sort of emotional mini-biographical story kind of like what we see for the Olympic athletes ... sponsored maybe by EA Games or something. It could work!

[Kaunaloa]

hey, i love the blatant injection of capitalism as much [more?] as the next guy, but i maintain it will still be a challenging sell to the delegates ...

[Daniel de Gracia II]

Hmm. Maybe the materialistic element of bling bling "superstardom" as a ConCon delegate under those suggested proposals will draw people to want to be delegates and ultimately pay more attention to our local affairs ... so it has the side effect of everyone knowing about what's going on this time around and being more interested in politics!

Awwww can you just see it? And we of course have to engineer it so that maybe two of the delegates get engaged during the ConCon (televised of course), one of the delegates is an 18-year old that comes from a rough background and only wants a chance, and he finds out that he gets a full paid scholarship to go to Harvard .... gotta pull on people's capitalistic / materialistic tendencies :D