An international military conference in Adelaide that boasted of drawing “more than 1,100 delegates from around the world” has been derided by attendees as a “total shitshow” and compared to the infamous Fyre Festival held in the Bahamas.
This week’s MAST event was billed as a “leading international maritime, air and space technologies defence event” with Adelaide the “first Southern Hemisphere city to host the event in its 17-year history”.
However, furious defence industry figures claim organisers of the MAST 24 conference greatly exaggerated participant numbers, and falsely claimed officials such as Australia’s Chief of Navy Vice Admiral Mark Hammond would be appearing.
“They over-promised and under-delivered. Companies and organisations that MAST 24 said would attend aren’t here and the claim of 1,000+ people is ludicrous, it might just be half of that,” a conference attendee told the ABC.
“Despite claiming there would be dozens of exhibiters at MAST, there was only a handful of stands, and none of the defence officials the organisers said would be here turned up.”
The event was billed as a “leading international maritime, air and space technologies defence event” and a 17-year first for the southern hemisphere. (Supplied)
“It’s an utter embarrassment and total shitshow – not even the South Australian Defence Minister or Defence SA boss turned up, it reminded me of the Fyre Festival,” another defence industry figure quipped.
“There are dozens of Japanese officials and representatives here, but there doesn’t appear to be anyone from the Australian Defence Department here in an official capacity”.
One local defence company claims it paid close to $10,000 to exhibit inside the Adelaide Convention Centre during the three-day event, only to discover it wasn’t on the list of participants and none of its material had been delivered to the venue.
Industry figures claim at least two large Australian defence companies wrote to organisers ahead of the event to demand they be removed from material that falsely portrayed they were official participants in the conference.
MAST CEO Warren Edge has rejected criticism of the showcase, telling the ABC he was “not aware of any incorrect advertising of companies” and insisted organisers “made every effort to ensure this did not occur”.
“MAST received communication last Thursday 14 November that Vice Admiral Mark Hammond was unable to attend due to operational matters, and subsequently updated our website on Saturday morning (due to international travel of key personnel on Friday),” he said in a statement.
“I have been advised that one exhibitor unfortunately was unable to complete their installation prior to event start and we are working to rectify this with them.”
The Defence Department has declined to comment on the controversy, but the ABC has confirmed Vice Admiral Mark Hammond did not receive an invitation to speak at the MAST 24 Conference.
The South Australian government declined to comment on how much funding it provided to stage the MAST 24 conference, citing “commercial in confidence” contract provisions.
“Funding is offered to business events that meet strict criteria and reconciliation is completed after the business event and is performance-based,” a government spokesperson told the ABC.
“The treasurer and minister for defence and space industries, and the CEO of Defence SA, couldn’t attend the MAST event as they are currently visiting the UK for a series of high-level talks, including with defence companies.”
The spokesperson declined to say whether the MAST conference would be supported in Adelaide in the future but confirmed Acting Premier Susan Close did attend this week’s event.
