Festival can impact a city if nurtured properly

SO, a week after the 2019 edition of Intwasa I travelled to Bloemfontein, South Africa, for a taste of the Macufe Festival. The long journey and the festival was my way of distressing after a week of running and stressing (with others, of course). It was also time to reflect and benchmark. The long journey was good for a lot of reflection. But first, I was shocked to get to Bloemfontein and take hours looking for accommodation because most places had been booked by people coming for the festival. That was the first sign of what kind of a festival I was attending. A festival whose impact you felt even before you attended an event. All the places I went to kept telling me, “Sorry, we’re full. It’s Macufe time.”

So, my first reflection was on creating this kind of impact with Intwasa. I know Macufe is government-run and funded. That alone says a lot of things. Its programming is massive. There are a number of international artistes on the programme but more importantly South Africans that are known to support and consume their own cultural products — so the excitement here is not about the foreign artistes. South Africans enjoy and celebrate their own. I think with Intwasa there is a need to re-engage Zimbabwe Tourism Authority (ZTA) — see how we can use the festival to market Bulawayo and maybe Zimbabwe as a tourism destination. The bigger the players the bigger the impact. A proper collaboration with ZTA has potential to unlock a lot for Intwasa as a festival and Bulawayo as a tourist destination.

There is also a need to continuously engage Bulawayo City Council and continue developing the partnership between the festival and the city itself. I have seen the impact of a big festival in a city — hotels, the food business, transport, they all get a good share. Somehow, our city fathers and corporate leaders need to see this bigger picture. I think it is good that a memorandum of understanding is being pencilled between the festival and the city of Bulawayo. Though the agreement is mostly on support of the festival through offering City Hall and Large City Hall Car Park further engagement should see council supporting the festival in a bigger way in the future.

I know the Zimbabwe economy does not favour growing festivals. As things stand the arts sector is one of most affected. National government and even local governments do not fund the arts. So most artistes are living from hand to mouth. Fresh products are rare. There are a lot of artistes with crazy and amazing ideas that could take the festival and the arts sector many levels up but can’t do so because there is no support.

Looking at this year’s Intwasa figures, attendance was not as good as we would have loved. This was expected and so for many reasons but the major one was liquidity. Currently, our people have no money, especially to spend on things like entertainment and culture. And those that have need a good reason to come and spend. They need big artistes. They need quality products. And all this comes with some investments. The festival needs to seriously invest on the Car Park stage as it will always be the face of the festival. Time to have big acts performing at the car park during Intwasa. This will always bring the numbers.

But also upon reflection festivals are not always about big numbers and big artistes. The danger of this model of success is that it forgets the grassroots, the young, poor artistes and children — the ones Intwasa has been specialising on. So once again a balance is needed. It is good to be very commercial and bring in the numbers, and it is also more important to serve the community and uplift the young and disadvantaged artistes. That is the dice Intwasa has to delicately throw and hope for the best.

I will tell you more about this amazing festival and how it compares to our local ones later. For now, let me take this time once again to thank everyone who made the festival happen. Thank you to the festival funding partners, the festival organizing committee, service providers, the wonderful artistes that gave it all and to everyone, particularly residents of Bulawayo, who came out in their numbers to be part of this growing festival. Let’s do it again in 2020. Siyabonga!