It takes a lot of chutzpah to try to turn a $3 million loss to the taxpayer into a success, but that's what Government is doing with last year's Bermuda Music Festival.

It turns out that the Festival cost $5.8 million to stage and took in revenues of $2.8 million, presumably from ticket sales and sponsorships. That results in a financial loss of $3 million, which is pretty high, and would have been disastrous if it was a privately funded event. Instead, the taxpayer is footing the bill.

About 1,500 visitors attended the event, which is worth something. On the other hand, for $5.8 million, you could probably hand out 1,000 air tickets and a free night in a moderately priced hotel and get around 5,800 people to visit the Island, so it cannot be said that the effort was entirely justified on that basis.

Nor was it clear from Government's announcement if some of those visitors came to the Island to perform or support performers for the festival. A more detailed breakdown of the visitors would be needed for that, and would be welcome.

In 2007, Government said 3,000 tickets were bought by visitors, which suggests, if most visitors attended two or three of the nights, that the number of visitors coming to the Island was about the same in 2008, despite the lure of the high profile acts.

Indeed, it is difficult to determine whether the event provided value for money without the full budget for the event being made public. What is already known is that some $2.2 million was paid to the ten visiting acts, with headliners Beyonce and Alicia Keyes getting around $1.5 million of that amount.

That leaves some $3.6 million for other performers, the stage, sound systems, promotion and the like, which seems pretty steep.

In the interests of transparency and open government, which Dr. Brown says he champions, the full budget should be made public.

No one would deny that the event itself was not well done or highly enjoyable. But was it worth $5.8 million? And shouldn't it have been first class for that amount? The response from Government to that is that the event generated publicity and exposure for Bermuda which would not have occurred if the event had not taken place.

According to Government's public relations agency, the exposure received in newspapers, magazines and websites would have cost $3.5 million if the same amount of space was bought in advertising. On that basis, Government says, it was worth it.

That figure does not include two web videos featuring Beyonce in Bermuda, Government said, because it is impossible to put a dollar value on them. One, promoting her new album shown on Wal-Mart's website and in Wal-Mart stores, apparently received substantial hits, while the other is promoting her mother's clothing line. This is obviously helpful to Bermuda, but it is almost impossible to say whether it translates into actual visitors.

The claim that reports in print and on the web were worth $3.5 million in free advertising is also difficult to substantiate. Internet searches of many of the major media outlets said to have reported on the event throw up little beyond calendar listings and the odd photo on the Internet. That's not to say that the brand exposure will not result in people coming to the Island in the future, but that is exceptionally difficult to quantify.

Government's own actions tell the real story; this year, the festival will be scaled back. The reason given is that in the current economic climate, the money can be better spent on other forms of promotion.

While it is fair to say that people are going to be less likely than ever to spend money coming to Bermuda to see a concert, the reality is that they weren't exactly flocking to the event in the first place, and apparently, that $3.5 million worth of "free" exposure isn't that valuable after all.