Contingency plan
63. We explored NMEC's contingency plans for cost overruns or reduced revenues in our Report, The Millennium Dome. Mr Mandelson told us that "there would not be an overall cost overrun", and that the Company would deliver the Experience within the agreed budget.[165] In that Report, we concluded: "We found both the Company and Mr Mandelson reluctant to elaborate about their contingency plans, if indeed such contingency plans have been prepared as they should have been ... We conclude that a comprehensive contingency plan has not yet reached final form."[166]
107. The marketing campaign has had to counter many preconceptions and media insinuations about the Dome. The Company did not place a sufficient emphasis on marketing before the Dome opened and was unduly reliant on free coverage in the press. That approach proved to be disastrous when the press coverage became largely hostile.
Recommendation
The Millennium Commission said that it encouraged "projects to learn from one another".[62]
English: The Millennium Dome, London, UK
Dome to Dome: US Capitol
The O2, the largest single-roofed structure in the...The Magna project felt that it had benefited from the Commission's "ability to bring experience from other projects".[63] We consider the sharing of best practice to have been beneficial both to the capital projects and to the Millennium Commission. We recommend that the Government consider ways to ensure that the increased expertise in project management that has resulted is not dissipated when the Millennium Commission concludes its work.
35. The demands and risks associated with the project were such that no private operator would ever have taken them on. The concept of time was intended to be the theme of the Millennium Experience, but is perhaps more salient in explaining the nature of the project management and delivery than as a theme of the Experience. First, the Dome was faced with an immovable deadline for opening--31 December 1999--and thus...