Local artists decry organisers’ ill treatment
For a music lover, things seemed to be going well for this weekend’s music show featuring grammy award winning artist, Black Coffee but behind the scenes it was a different story.
The show, dubbed Kulture, held its first event this past Saturday and whilst it seemed the occassion could be disturbed by the rain, with the opportunity of seeing the ever busy man whose year-long itinerary is jam packed until mid next year, the organisers were quick to come up with Plan B.
They moved the show to an indoor area. The downside, however, is that the indoor area was too small to accommodate the large crowd that had gathered to witness the music extravaganza.
The Monitor took a stroll around the packed hall and it was evident that the room could not accommodate the large crowd. Cans of alcohol dominated the floor area and one could simply not move. Spilled alcohol and water also made it unbearable but the attendants simply did not seem to care.
They danced and enjoyed music from the performers who took turns on the stage.
Behind the scenes it was also chaotic for local performers. Some of local entertainers who spoke to The Monitor on condition of anonymity shared how they were simply unable to perform as they were told to make way for the South Africans.
Another local big shot was hurried off stage to make way for the international acts. “People came out here to see us. Our names were also on the line-up and this may leave a bad taste on our followers because they would think we are the ones who did not show up or who were simply the least entertaining because they don’t know what was happening behind the scenes. Locals are treated like sh**t and this needs to stop,” a local perfomer told Showtime.
Another said: “They did not even prepare a set up for us locals to chill by before or after perfomance for those who had the chance to but the international acts had set ups prepared for them. It is really embarassing for us and such ill-treatment should stop.”
Thato Mochipisi, the coordinator of the event said the reason some of the local artists did not perform was because of the venue change which was decided on Friday. “By Thursday night everything from sound to stage was ready but we made a final decision to change the venue on midday Friday because of the unfavourable weather conditions. So changing the venue meant we had to take down everything and begin to set up at our indoor venue. Doing everything from scratch took most of our time and we ended up running behind schedule in terms of performances on the day,” she said.
Mochipisi also said as a result, some of the scheduled performance slots were affected and local artists were the most affected. She admitted that their biggest mistake was poor communication no wonder some artists did not even know that their slots were no longer available. She said they wanted to rectify that mistake by scheduling the affected local artists in the wee hours of the morning or arrange some sort of thank you party after the event. She said at the moment they are still working on how best to make it up to the artists.
On the issue that some local artists were being ill-treated and chased from the artists’ lounge, Mochipisi revealed that the pressure was high from some of the managers of the international artists who were engaged.
“These artists have some terms of engagement and they mostly want to be on their own. But overall we treat our local artists the same way we treat international ones. For example, we booked accommodation at Peermont for all artists. We showed local artists the same hospitality,” she added. Mochipisi indicated that on the size of the venue, they did try their best to create a better atmosphere for their patrons. She said their patrons were happy and that there was some extra seating outside. “As you have seen, that was a world class venue,” she revealed.