NOTE TO EDITORS:

This is to advise that the two media opportunities indicated below are still scheduled for today.

Date: June 28
Time: 3 to 4 p.m.
Location: Confederation Hill
Access: via Gooseberry Lane

Fighter kite training:
This media opportunity centres around the training program for the corporate and student teams taking part in the Japanese Rokkaku (ROK) fighter kite competition on June 30 at Confederation Hill. Japanese Rokkaku fighter kites are an exciting component of major kite festivals around the world. At the "Wireless Wizard" Kite Festival, corporate and student teams will fight for Rokkaku supremacy in the sky. Training for this event is being done by some of Canada's premier ROK kite fliers. Students involved in the competition come from throughout the province. Interviews can be arranged with the trainers and team participants.

Tour the world's largest kite:
This media opportunity involves the world's largest kite, the "Mega-Ray". This mammoth kite has travelled to kite festivals throughout the world since it was created in 1997. Swimming and undulating like a giant, multi-hued manta ray when it is in the sky, it is a great colourful tourable cavern when it is inflated on the ground. The kite measures 42 metres across its wingspan and 28 metres in length (68 metres when the tail is added in). Its brilliant body is made of 566 panels of red, mauve, black and yellow nylon. A 15-tonne truck is needed to hold it down when it is flying.

The St. John's "Wireless Wizard" Kite Festival is produced by the Special Celebrations Corporation, Department of Tourism, Culture and Recreation, Kevin Aylward, Minister, in collaboration with the Celebrate Canada Committee for Newfoundland and Labrador and the City of St. John's.

Media contact: Mary MacNab, Communications, Special Celebrations Corporation, (709) 729-3813, cell: (709) 685-8102, e-mail: mmacnab@mail.gov.nf.ca

2001 06 28                                                    11:25 a.m.