Bruce Ndlovu, Sunday Life Reporter
BEFORE the first revellers started trooping into Hartsfield Tshisanyama last Saturday for the Park and Chill gig headlined by South African star Mas Musiq, promoter Mduduzi Mdlongwa of 3D Events already had misgivings.
Mas Musiq, is one of Mzansi’s hottest amapiano acts, with a consistent output over the last few years that has seen him become a household name that is lauded for his skills as both a producer and a DJ.
Mduduzi Mdlongwa
Recently, his single Gangnam Style, taken off his new acclaimed album, Nini NaNini, has been dominating the charts and dance floors, becoming a viral hit that has proved once again to be a testament to his amazing talent.
Despite this, Mdlongwa felt that last week’s gig had come at the worst possible time. Mischievous forces in the black market were wreaking havoc, playing fast and loose with the country’s basket of currencies, with people tightening their belts as they waited to see if the next day might bring cooler heads and calmer exchange rates.
Given the volatility, Mdlongwa thus felt that the gig should have been shelved for a later date. However, such is the cruel nature of showbiz that this was not possible. Mas Musiq had already been paid when he got booked and he was ready to come to the City of Kings and fulfil his end of the bargain.
The promoters had to bite the bullet and hope for the best. It would all end in disappointment.
“Let’s look at Mas Musiq’s recent show which didn’t pull the numbers strictly because we believe that it is the time that the rates started shooting up and people did not come out as expected,” Mdlongwa told Sunday Life in an interview.
“It clearly shows that there’s little disposable income because if you look at it, that show was pegged at US$5 and still it didn’t take off. If you look at the bars they didn’t do well and it looked like just another weekend without a foreign act.
The rates going up as they do, it slows down everything and the problem is that you would have planned things based on a specific pattern and when that changes it throws all planning out of the window because you have a lot of things to undo yet you don’t have the time to do so.
That day we had Mas Musiq was probably the wrong day to host an event of that kind but we could not pull back. This shows you how hard it is to plan for events now.”
Mdlongwa said days when prices of basic commodities shoot up, it serves as a timely reminder to prospective revellers that they should probably put their entertainment needs on the back burner.
“The variances in the rates have had a serious negative effect on our showbiz because if you look at entertainment, it feels low on anyone’s list of obligations so if people don’t have money, they will not go for any entertainment event,” he said.
Mdlongwa’s sentiments were echoed by Intwasa Arts Festival koBulawayo and Bulawayo Arts Awards organiser Raisedon Baya, who said although shows mainly billed revellers in foreign currency, this had its downside as people thought they could find better use for their hard-earned money.
Artistes performing at Intwasa (file photo)
“Hifa has been under for almost five years and that says a lot. I think we are one of the sectors that have been hardest hit by the exchange rate madness because what it basically does is that it means that you can’t plan for a long time and whenever you’re budgeting it means you have to budget in forex.
In terms of shows, you will see that people have to pay in forex but while it might seem like a good idea it has its downside. You have to remember that for most of our people, art is not a basic necessity and when they decide to come to an event it’s because of pleasure and entertainment.
So, people start to question whether for US$10 they should go to a one or two-hour show instead of buying groceries. So, the decision there means that art might lose because the US dollar rises in importance and it has to be properly used,” he said.
Baya said with corporates tightening their budgets, artistes were now at the mercy of the few foreign donors that were still prepared to sponsor events. Only a few local musicians, with the power to pull hundreds to their shows, were in a favourable position to determine their own fate.
“What it also means is that on a bigger scale, a lot of companies now cannot support arts events now because you are going to them and giving them a budget in foreign currency which they don’t have. Even if they do have it, they just can’t give it out and rarely do we get support in local currency.
“This has basically meant that a lot of our art right now is standing because of the benevolence of foreign donor funding and that means a few foreign actors are now the ones determining the course of the arts sector because they are the ones that are putting money on the table.
A few musicians, the bigger ones, are making money from gate takings and they can determine their own course but for others, the situation is different,” he said.
Dalubuhle Sibanda of Umahlekisa Entertainment said they had to shelve some events as the volatility of exchange rates had meant that they could not plan ahead adequately.
“We have had to also change how we charge for our events because as you can imagine, even the official rate is changing on a day-to-day basis. For the first time, we had to cancel an event, which was something that we never thought we would have to do because we could not reach certain benchmarks from a certain point of view.
We had to cancel the Next Generation event which was supposed to be the new direction that Umahlekisa is going as an entertainment company.
It was supposed to be a platform that unearths new talent in Bulawayo but we had to shelve it because we just wouldn’t meet the required funding for such an event because, together with our partners, we are also struggling with the volatility in the financial markets at the moment,” he said.
Sibanda said as marketing budgets were cut by companies seeking to prioritise in other areas, the arts were set to take even more hits in the coming weeks and months.
“It has been hectic for us in showbiz because most of our events hinge on product placement and corporate partnerships. Most of the big companies that we work with trade in local currency and now marketing budgets have been cut so it means we have to reimagine some events.
It’s quite tricky and we are now going to have to reimagine how we approach things in the entertainment game going into the future,” he said.