Live Earth

Reading this morning’s papers, I couldn’t help but notice the lacklustre coverage for yesterday’s “Live Earth” event.  It strikes me that perhaps we’ve all got big event fatigue.  Two years ago I was asked to be on a panel organised by the media magazine PR Week, to judge the greatest publicity stunts of all time.  Live Aid was one of them, an event which we all felt was a challenging, clever, awareness raising, life affirming, fresh and brilliant idea which generated instant fame, coverage and money. Above all; it really made a difference.  Part of its success I think was that there was an overall central spokesperson, Bob Geldof, keeping it alive.  Live Earth lacked this central focal point and I don’t think this helped.  There is an increasing number of huge music events happening these days, and so it’s difficult to get any real impact from them. The complexities of global warming haven’t suddenly been understood and taken on board after Live Earth, and I wonder it’s actually had much effect at all or whether it was just preaching to the converted? I hope I am proved wrong.