Jeff Bezos has been forced to decamp his wedding to the Venice Arsenale.
The last minute change for the Amazon billionaire’s wedding this weekend to Lauren Sánchez, a former TV journalist, came after a protest group threatened to release thousands of inflatable crocodiles into the canals around the original venue, the sixteenth century Scuola Grande della Misericordia palazzo.
The perennial headquarters for the Venice Biennale, which since 2012 has been owned by the city of Venice, the Arsenale has been judged more secure, with the historical fortifications of the former naval base offering protection against any disruption to the space-loving oligarch’s celebrations.
Security is already tight, with Donald Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, already in the city, and it is reported that Elon Musk, Kim Kardashian and Leonardo DiCaprio are among the other two hundred guests expected to arrive on 95 private jets.
The crocodile threat was made by a group called No Space for Bezos, described as an ‘anti-fascist, anti-capitalist, anti-racist and trans-feminist political space’. The group also takes aim at the tourism, wealth and use of private yachts that the biennial has become synonymous with. One organiser told the Guardian, ‘We really wanted to problematise the ridiculous and obscene wealth that allows a man to rent a city for three days.’
