John Major had originally conceived the idea of the Millennium Dome as a relatively small-scale, Festival of Britain event. Then Tony got elected, threw a bunch of money at it and vastly increased the size, scope and funding of the project. Open for just 12 months, it received a total of 6,500,000 visitors, of which 6,000,000 had been to see the Festival of Britain which only ran from May to September. By the time the New Millennium Experience Company was officially liquidated in 2002, audits reported that the total cost of the Dome had been £789 million pounds. Of this, just £189 million was recovered from ticket sales: the rest was paid for by funding secured from the National Lottery.
The dome has since been given to the Anschutz Entertainment Group to redevelop into an entertainment arena, which will see music and sporting events take place from July 2007, a number of bars, restaurants and a multi-screen cinema complex. However, it has been reported that one of the conditions for the AEG taking on the project (despite being given the building and land) was that they be allowed to build a super casino there, and that since Prescott failed to deliver his promises they will be halving their investment in the project.
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