Handful brave cold for BCM Easter Festival fun

JUST a handful of music lovers braved the cold and rainy weather conditions for the first annual BCM Easter Festival on Saturday.

Mayoral committee member for special programmes Xolani Witbooi said in his opening remarks the Buffalo City Metro was happy to have partnered with the annual music event and is looking to have events of this magnitude every month.

“This is a metro that is youthful. We should not only have events during the festive season.

“Our people should get used to the culture of entertainment. Such events should be a build-up to the festive season,” Witbooi said.

Energetic master of ceremony (MC) Buhle Mafani, affectionately known as DJ Chef, revved up the crowd between the performances

The rather male-dominated lineup was made up of musicians such as Vusi Nova, Riky Rick, Mobi Dixon, Roots 2000, DJ Dimples, PH, Sjava, Vetkuk, and Mahoota.

The event was made possible by Oh! Concepts, together with BCM and the Daily Dispatch.

Oh! Concepts’ Olwethu Hoyana said this was only the beginning of great things to take place in the metro

“Considering its the first one, its not a bad turn-out. The weather wasn’t really helpful, but from an organisational point of view I am satisfied,” he said.

While the people did not come out in numbers, Hoyana said postponing the event was not an option.

“In my experience, people generally buy tickets on the day, shifting it would have meant we had to change the whole concept and we couldn’t do that. There is only one Easter weekend and this was the BCM Easter Festival.”

In going forward, Hoyana said with the backing of BCM and other stakeholders, they would host the event again next year around Easter.

“If we get similar support from the city and other stakeholders we will do this again. It is a new concept; it will take another year or two to gain support.

“We managed to put together a nice lifestyle experience for people to talk about.

“Next year when this happens again, people will know about it. We are trying to attract people to BCM and make it a good destination, not just in December,” he said.

With less than two months to organise the event, Hoyana said he wished they could have had more time to campaign.

“We proposed the concept last year to the city and we wanted to have a reliable partner. Approval only came end of February and we started campaigning soon after,” he added. —