A new date in 2006 now being planned for Berlin Olympic Stadium event.

THE WORSHIP event Calling All Nations planned to take place at the Olympic Stadium in Berlin has been put back for a year. The event's organiser, worship leader Noel Richards, explained the events behind the decision. "When the stadium owners initially offered us the date of June 25th 2005 in April last year, we assumed that the negotiation of the contract would be a relatively straightforward matter. In good faith, we went ahead with advertising the event and put everything in place for this to happen. On 24th November, we had a long and fruitful meeting with the stadium management. The result of this is we now have secured a workable contract. But it became clear that with less than seven months remaining before June 25th 2005, it would be impossible to pull this event together and see a fairly full or completely full venue. If we had settled the contract by the end of the summer, we could have now been well ahead in terms of publicity and ticket sales with almost 12 months lead-in time.

"The UK event organising team met recently to discuss the situation. We also took counsel from our core team of advisers in Germany. We all believe that the vision for a Global Gathering of worship at the Olympic Stadium is from God. Everyone we have talked to as we have sought advice has been very positive about the event in Berlin. They have also been pleased at having extra time to prepare and do not see this postponement as being a problem. We have therefore decided that with this workable contract we will pursue 2006 as the best option and the stadium management are looking into available dates."