Interfaith dialogue?

Yesterday I attended the Interfaith Dialogue organised by the Law Dept of the Australian National University as part of the tour by the Dali Lama.
A few things that struck me.
The presentation attracted over 4000 attendees to the AIS arena - pretty standard for an ANU Law lecture quipped the instigator of the the event.
The scheduled starting time was 2.30 pm and although only about 75% of the audience were seated by then it started bang on time, with stragglers still coming in 30 mins later. And it finished at the scheduled time of 4.00 pm. A lot of conference and event organisers would do well to follow this trend.
The next was that although it was described as "Interfaith Dialogue" only the Abrahamic religions were invited to be involved in the dialogue with the Dali Lama. It would appear that the organiser, a western convert to Buddhism, couldn't see past his own history.
Each of the speakers read from prepared notes, so when the Dali Lama approached the lectern without notes he read the one taped to the top of the lectern "Do not lift the lid on this lectern" - it brought the house down.