London's most unique job?

Name: Nick Green Job: Director of New Year's Eve, produced by Di Robson Arts Management for Newham Council.

Age: 39 Time in job? Two months Most recent jobs: Events director, Tall Ships Race, Falmouth; production and events manager, Eclipse Festival, South Devon.

What is your job brief: To produce a special event to celebrate the Millennium New Year's Eve in Newham.

What does your job cover? Our team does everything from programming music stages to organising a street festival, plus sponsorship, marketing and health and safety.

Are you really going to freeze the Thames? Yes. We've found a way to create a floating ice rink in the Royal Victoria Docks - the biggest floating artificial ice cover in the world and the size of two Olympic rinks. We're going to have ice shows and sports, feasting and fireworks.

How do you sell it to your sponsors?

We say it's the first event of its kind and it will get global coverage.

We're letting them freeze their logos on the ice.

Isn't if all a bit gimmicky? No, it's the first event in Newham's millennium celebrations and the 50,000 people we expect to be there will be filmed as part of BBC's special global millennium broadcast. Everything from prices to performers will be geared to Newham's community. And the ice rink will be open to the public from 13 December to 19 January.

How did you get your job? I read about the idea of freezing the Thames in a newspaper and then I saw the job advertised.

Anything else attract you? I'd already done some consultancy work for other councils but Newham was definitely the furthest ahead in their planning. I knew the area, too, as I lived there for 10 years.

What made you the ideal candidate?

I enjoy a challenge. At Falmouth I helped get 350,000 people into a small Devon town for the Tall Ships Race.

Isn't it depressing working on New Year's Eve? In my line of business, if you're not working, you ought to be.

What about your partner? I can't say my wife's looking forward to it as much as me. But she's promised to be there.

What's been your biggest challenge?

People saying we couldn't freeze the Thames. Then finding a way of making it happen.

Is the Millennium Dome a rival?

No, there's been a lot of co-operation between London boroughs over the millennium - even if the dome originally wanted to use our site as a car park!

Is it strange that with the new millennium your job vanishes?

Not really. I've spent the last 10 years doing event management jobs and they usually end once the successful event is over.

Copyright 1999
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.