I WILL SURVIVE
Gloria Gaynor didn’t have Covid to contend with, but the singer’s message is universal. And for the music and events industry, survival is taking many post-pandemic forms
n 2021, if you look at your favourite SA musician’s Instagram page, you might see things you didn’t expect.
Instead of hot parties, adoring crowds or a new fashion line, you may see a “Work needed” sign instead.
One year without live music and little support from the government has left numerous SA musicians and artists financially on their knees.
Festivals and events have dried up because of lockdown regulations. Besides the artists, it’s left events companies in serious trouble after a year without sales.
Those who could took their events online, but it’s practically impossible to make the same number of sales from an online concert that an artist would have made from playing an arena to 50,000 people.
Gareth Wilson, a musician who has worked in the events industry for more than a decade, says the pandemic has caused organisers to start new businesses, or to leave entertainment altogether.
Wilson has been involved in events such as Oppikoppi, one of SA’s best-known live music festivals, which launched in 1994; RAMfest; DRUMbeat; the Hugh Masekela Heritage Festival; Aardklop; and Campus Invasion. He has worked as a talent buyer and has booked SA and international artists.
Wilson runs the Brand New Artist Solutions (BNAS) agency with Oppikoppi festival director Misha Loots. They represent promoters, rather than artists.
During the hard lockdown, BNAS partnered with a tech company and built a home streaming platform for musicians to play to their fans from their living rooms.
BNAS also signed up two new partners, to make mobile local music content for Telkom.
“We are still booking artists for clients, but not your regular festival events,” Wilson says.
Now, it’s “everything from corporate-style
Ishows to birthday parties. There are no gigs too small any more.” The challenge with small events is that the ticket revenue barely covers costs, most of which are made up by manpower.
“Besides the promoter and the band, you still need to cover all your technical requirements and marketing. Unfortunately, not a lot of acts have the pulling power to sell tickets for the prices needed to make it viable,” he says.
Reed Exhibitions found itself in a similar bind.
One of the largest organisers of festivals and trade fairs — its flagship events include Comic Con Africa and Decorex — it has seen its business largely derailed by lockdowns worldwide.
The company’s SA MD, Carol Weaving, says that even before Covid the company was hosting events online, but the pandemic meant it had to up its virtual game.
“We understood that having a virtual presence is a tool which strongly enhances the returns achieved by an event like Comic Con Africa. The event would have had online aspects which people who couldn’t travel to it could enjoy,” she says.
Still, event organisers feel they’ve been dealt a bad hand.
“People can go to pubs and prayer gatherings. Shopping centres can have 10,000 customers a day, but a trade event can only have 6,000 people, even though we are professionals in running safe events,” she says.
“We want to promote SA as a destination for tourists overseas. It’s not in our interests not to run a super-safe event.”
Weaving says she expects all events everywhere to have a virtual aspect from now on.
“You want keep communities close and keep conversations going.”
But when will festivals return to SA? When will we get to boogie with friends or throw ourselves into a frenzied mosh pit?
With very low vaccination rates in SA, it’s difficult to be optimistic.
Attracting international talent will be a battle.
Another factor is currency weakness, says Wilson. “The rand has been a huge factor for the past couple of years and it is making it harder and harder to bring top international acts out, and I cannot imagine the weak vaccine rollout is going to do us any favours either.”
Steyn Entertainment, which organises the Rocking the Daisies festival, has, meanwhile, launched a record label — Stay Low — as it tries to keep going.
“Having established a rapport in music and art scenes around the globe as the principal conduit for the continent over the past six years, Steyn Entertainment is [on a quest] to redefine the music industry,” it says.
It recently partnered with independent record label Global African Sounds (GAS).
Under the partnership, SA musician and GAS founder Priddy Ugly has assumed the position of record label executive, alongside industry savant and Stay Low record label head Vaughn Thiel.
Partnerships such as these will hopefully mean that while you might not be able to see your favourite artists live, you will get to hear them on Spotify, at least.
We want to promote SA as a destination for tourists overseas. It’s not in our interests not to run a super-safe event
Carol Weaving