Essence Festival costs cut to R25m

COST-CUTTING measures have been introduced to decrease the bill the municipality will foot for the Essence Festival this year.

Reporting on the event to the eThekwini Municipality executive committee meeting yesterday, acting deputy city manager for economic development Phillip Sithole said that this year the festival was estimated to cost about R25 million, compared with R38m last year.

This is excluding the cost of programmes already run by the municipality that were incorporated into the festival last year, such as the Durban Business and Fashions Fairs.

“For 2017, the first thing that we agreed to with the Essence Festival is that there would be no events at the Moses Mabhida Stadium or People’s Park, unless they are privately funded… As it stands, all events will take place at the ICC, which will reduce the total bill significantly,” said Sithole.

Private

Private promoters would be allowed to come up with their own events for the Moses Mabhida Stadium, but these would not be council funded.

International performers for the festival’s two concerts would also be reduced to one each, from about four last year.

“But the reduction of the total bill does not reduce the experience or the quality of the shows,” said Sithole.

The DA’s Zwakele Mncwango raised questions about the amount spent, saying last year’s festival could not be hailed a success when only 5 000 people attended the concert at Moses Mabhida. In response, Sithole said the festival only used a third of the stadium, so it could not have been filled to capacity.

To the claim that 1 200 temporary jobs had been created, Mncwango asked if there was a lasting legacy left by the festival.

To this, Sithole outlined some of the business relationships forged at the festival that would be detailed further at the launch of the festival next month.

According to the report, more than 61 000 people attended the various events at last year’s festival, injecting R62.8m into the city’s economy.

Heinz de Boer said it was “unfathomable” how the city could spend “such an incredible” amount of money on the festival.

De Boer called for the festival to be canned.

To this, economic development and planning committee chairperson Sipho Kaunda said the city had a contractual agreement with Essence, and that pulling out of it would cause major reputational damage.