Jeff Bezos arrives in Venice for wedding amid protests over inequality

Amazon tycoon set to marry Lauren Sanchez in lavish Venice wedding as activists protest ‘growing disparity’.

Multibillionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez have arrived in Venice ahead of their star-studded weekend wedding, an event that has galvanised an eclectic assortment of activist groups protesting it.

Bezos waved from a water taxi as he and Sanchez arrived on Wednesday at the dock of the Aman Hotel, a five-star hotel on the Grand Canal, with two security boats in tow.

The lavish event has drawn protests by groups who view it as a sign of the growing disparity between the haves and have-nots, while residents complain it exemplifies the way their needs are disregarded in the era of mass tourism to the historic and iconic lagoon city.

About a dozen Venetian organisations – including housing advocates, anti-cruise ship campaigners and university groups – have united to protest the multi-day event under the banner “No Space for Bezos,” a play on words also referring to the bride’s recent space flight.

They have staged small-scale protests, unfurling anti-Bezos banners on iconic Venetian sites. They were joined Monday by Greenpeace and the British group “Everyone Hates Elon,” which has smashed Tesla vehicles to protest Elon Musk, to unfurl a giant banner in St Mark’s Square protesting purported tax breaks for billionaires.

On Wednesday, other activists launched a float down the Grand Canal featuring a mannequin of Bezos clinging onto an Amazon box, his fists full of fake dollars. The British publicity firm that announced the stunt said it wasn’t a protest of the wedding, “but against unchecked wealth, media control, and the growing privatisation of public spaces”.

There has been no comment from Bezos’s representatives on the protests.

Amazon multibillionaire founder Jeff Bezos, right, and Lauren Sanchez arrive by boat at a hotel in Venice, Italy, ahead of festivities in the lagoon city [Luca Bruno/AP Photo]

The local activists had planned a more organised protest for Saturday, aiming to obstruct access to canals with boats to prevent guests from reaching a wedding venue.

“It will be a strong, decisive protest, but peaceful,” said Federica Toninello, an activist with the Social Housing Assembly network. “We want it to be like a party, with music, to make clear what we want our Venice to look like.”

Among the 200 guests confirmed to be attending the wedding are Mick Jagger, Ivanka Trump, Oprah Winfrey, Katy Perry and Leonardo DiCaprio.

Venice, renowned for its romantic canal vistas, hosts hundreds of weddings each year, not infrequently those of the rich and famous. Previous celebrity weddings, like that of George Clooney to human rights lawyer Amal Alamuddin in 2014, were embraced by the public. Hundreds turned out to wish the couple well at City Hall.

Bezos has a different political and business profile, said Tommaso Cacciari, a prominent figure in the movement that successfully pushed for a ban on cruise ships over 25,000 tons travelling through the Giudecca Canal in central Venice.

“Bezos is not a Hollywood actor,” Cacciari said. “He is an ultra-billionaire who sat next to Donald Trump during the inauguration, who contributed to his re-election and is contributing in a direct and heavy way to this new global obscurantism.”