I was at the Ontario Summer Games (opening) ceremony at Laurentian University, and there are a few things I would like to share.

First of all, the event seemed quite unorganized. Also, if the event co-ordinators wanted to bore the audience (who were mainly 15 to 22 years of age) to death with a bunch of politicians who said the same speech over and over again, they succeeded.

Secondly, I will never understand why the event would even pay bands to play at the ceremony if they were not going to get to be part of the ceremony.

This is how the night went. After two hours of selfish political campaigning on behalf of our elected members, the hosts announce the end of the ceremony, and then mention, “oh by the way two bands are playing now if anyone wants to stick around.”

Meanwhile, everyone is already leaving because the hosts said good night, and it was getting late. All the athletes needed to wake up the next morning for practice.

I mean, honestly, learn to put on an event and learn to support the locals. I am very good friends with the bands that played, and I had to watch as they saw what could have been their biggest crowd leave before they could set up to play.

It was pathetic, it was embarrassing, it was rude and it was a lot of things other than good.

I know for a fact that the bands were extremely excited to play for that audience  and to be part of the event.

The audience was way more important to them then the money, and they ended up getting disappointed and feeling like their time had been completely wasted.

I wonder how the mayor would have felt if everybody would have walked out on him while he was saying his precious little speech?

Why did the politicians get so much time to talk about themselves, when they had nothing to do with the Ontario Games, anyway?

Maybe if that would have been cut in half, or if the bands would have gotten to play earlier on during the night, less people would have left out of boredom.

The mayor said he wanted to party—where was the party? He was gone long before the party started.

Sometimes it seems like nothing can be done. Hopefully this letter will be taken seriously, and future events in Sudbury might be planned based on supporting locals instead of political campaigns.

Nicole Beaulieu Greater Sudbury