The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Fantasy Entertainment, Leslie Quaynor has revealed one of the things that constricted his ability to relocate the Fantasy Dome from the Trade Fair site.
According to him, apart from not securing another piece of land to re-mount his tent, he needed to fly in engineers from China to dismantle the structure.
He told Kwame Dadzie on Joy FM’s Showbiz A-Z that this was one of the reasons he needed more time to move the facility.
“That was in intent but unfortunately sometimes you need to know where you are going before you know where you are going to store it. It is very important. A lot of my equipment are very complex. The Dome is a very complex structure. So I am giving you an example. To dismantle it, I need the engineers that built it from China to come in, four, five of them for a couple of weeks to do that job. But then, I need also a new location to reassemble it,” he said.
On Saturday, March 16, 2024, the Ghana Trade Fair Company Limited demolished the 20,000-seater capacity Fantasy Dome.
According to the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Trade Fair, Dr Agnes Adu, the action was taken after giving the owner by the CEO of Fantasy Entertainment, Leslie Quaynor, about eight notices to vacate the leased premises for a redevelopment project of the place., as stated in their tenancy agreement.
She stated redevelopment of the Trade Fair Centre had been ongoing for some time and as such, all previous tenants including owners of Fantasy Dome had been given notice to move.
“…the Fantasy Dome was the lone person holding out and refusing to move. And after 15 months of consistently giving notices to the owners of the Fantasy Dome, the owners and the developers we had no choice but to dismantle so that we can continue with the work,” she noted.
Dr. Adu said that per the agreement they signed with Fantasy Entertainment, they gave the CEO ample time to take off his structures.
Detailing the events that led to the demolishing, Mr Quaynor, in an interview with JoyNews, narrated that his lease had ended and the process to relocate the dome to another venue was underway. As such, he requested an extension to which the Trade Fair disagreed.
To prevent the destruction of his property, Mr Quaynor said he sought a writ and an injunction at an Accra High Court to ensure the Trade Fair management put a halt to any demolition exercise, giving him ample time to relocate and was served on the company at the premises.
Leslie noted that this is a big blow not just to him as a businessman but to the entertainment industry which needs event centres like these to thrive.
Commenting on the issue, the Deputy Minister of Tourism, Arts and Culture, Mark Okraku-Mantey said he was yet to get more information on what really transpired.
He said at the African Music Business Summit held at the GIPC on Friday, March 22, 2024, that he was helping Leslie get a place to relocate his tent before the demolition happened.
“I am still probing. I am asking the legitimate question, why it went like that? You know that is under the Ministry of Trade. Because Leslie came to me personally that he wanted land to move the Dome.
“I gave him a place at the National Museum. Unfortunately, the Dome is way too big that after getting a place to fix it, they will struggle with the car park. That is why he didn’t take our land. So he took some steps to move,” he said at the summit.
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