Licensing slip-up: Hong Kong water slide event finally opens after five-hour delay
Organisers underestimated time needed for licensing approval, causing visitors to be turned away from water slide in Central Harbourfront until 2pm
It finally opened at 2pm yesterday, and the company responsible said disappointed visitors could exchange their tickets for later time slots.
Karen Kwok Ka-yan, project director of event organiser Dreams Salon Entertainment Culture, conceded that the company underestimated the time it needed to get approval from the government, which caused the delay yesterday morning.
“We did not have good control of the time,” she said. “It took some time to negotiate with the government’s Food and Environmental Hygiene Department.”
Roaming water park enterprise Slide the City, which installed the 10m-tall slide among other funfair-inspired food and game stalls on the Central Harbourfront, announced at 9am – the scheduled opening time – that ticket-holders would have to wait for further “fine-tuning” to be carried out and approval from the government’s Food and Environmental Hygiene Department.
When asked why the delay was announced yesterday morning instead of the day before, Kwok said the team had been “very confident” at that time and had thought all the issues would be resolved by that morning.
Netizens complained that no announcement on the delay was made on social media at all until it was nearly noon.
