A planned new summer music and theatre festival in the Zappeion Gardens in central Athens has been cancelled hours before its launch after critics complained that the temporary venue built to host events clashed with its surroundings.
The Olympia and Zappeion Bequest Committee said in a social media post late Saturday that the festival was being “postponed for technical reasons to do with the Zappeion site” which the committee manages, but did not further elucidate.
The committee, which is supervised by the Finance Ministry, said the stage and other installations would be removed “in the coming hours.”
The new Olympia Festival had been due to launch with a jazz concert Sunday, and was planned to run until July 25 with a mix of musical, theatrical and other events. Organizers had voiced hope it would “come to be a point of reference for the capital’s cultural summer.”
Photographs of the prefabricated venue, set up to the north of the Zappeion Hall, caused extensive criticism on social media with many arguing that it looked wrong in front of the 19th century neoclassical building and blocked views of its facade.
