Review of concert from 2004-03-05: Vancouver, Fairmont Hotel; fundraiser for Vancouver General Hospital - with Diana Krall
Vancouver Sun, 2004-03-06
- Amy O'Brian

Krall fundraiser draws elite

BENEFIT I Intimate evening features dining, music and charity auction

BY AMY O’BRIAN VANCOUVER SUN

Vancouver’s elite donned their best attire Friday night for an intimate fundraising performance by Elton John, Diana Krall and Elvis Costello.

Every entrance to the Fairmont Hotel Vancouver was tightly guarded by security as the three stars met with ticket holders and posed for photographs in a private room upstairs.

On the hotel’s third floor, satin dresses brushed past freshly pressed tuxedos as the 550 guests perused auction items in the Pacific Ballroom before sitting down to a gourmet meal and the exclusive musical performance.

A pink and black Versace suit once worn by Elton John and a diamond ring valued at $30,000 were two of the items put up for auction before the show.

The concert was expected to raise $350,000 to renovate and refurbish an outpatient facility that is part of Vancouver General Hospital’s leukemia and bone marrow transplantation program.

Sarah Richardson, the Toronto-based host of a design show on HGTV, was in attendance to announce she will donate her time to decorate the facility, which will be named the Krall Centre.

“The entire city is buzzing about this,” Richardson said of the Friday night fundraiser.

Tickets for the performance, An Evening with Diana Krall & Friends, ranged in price from $550 to $1,000 and sold out in two days.

Five days ago, the final pair of tickets to the concert were auctioned for $5,500 on eBay.

Aside from Friday’s concert, Krall, a Nanaimo-born jazz singer married to Costello, has held five other benefit concerts for the leukemia program since her mother, Adella, was hit with the disease and underwent transplant treatment. Krall’s mother died in May 2002.

The five previous performances raised more than $500,000 for the transplant program.