Kalawa Homecoming gig shifts venue

ORGANISERS of the Kalawa Homecoming Party in Bulawayo have had to shift the popular event from Queens Sports Club to Amazulu Sports Club due to the closure of the traditional venue by Zimbabwe Cricket.

The closure is meant to allow for refurbishment of the cricket venue ahead of the Cricket World Cup qualifiers in March next year.

Organiser of the Kalawa Homecoming, Vusumuzi Siqalaba of X-MO Squad said they had since identified Amazulu Sports Club as an alternative venue. He said the show’s date – December 27 however remains unchanged.

“Amazulu Sports Club which is down the road from Queens Sports Club along Robert Mugabe Way will play host to the Kalawa Homecoming Party this year. This is due to the fact that Queens will be closed in December so we won’t be able to hold our event there,” said Siqalaba.

He said the list of performers will be unveiled this week.

The chairman for Bulawayo Metropolitan Cricket Association, Vumi Moyo, said it was sad that they would miss out on cashing in on the famed Kalawa party.

“Queens Sports Club will have the whole field scarified in preparation for next year’s major World Cup qualifiers. This means that the venue will be unusable for at least two to three months. The same process will happen to other venues to be used for the qualifiers depending on the state of their fields.

“We’ll be missing out on one of our biggest cashcows of the year, the Kalawa show. We usually use that money to maintain the facility,” said Moyo.

This publication is reliably informed that the Homecoming organisers pay between $3 000 and $5 000 to hire the facility for the show.