Thrills, flops and disappointments

It all started with the Maxi Priest show, held at the Harare International Conference Centre on December 5. The show failed to live up to its billing despite the hype in the local press. The crowd was negligible and really, nothing “new” was on offer.
It was the same story for Tevin Campbell and Horace Brown. While the organizers of the show attributed the poor turnout to a last-minute change of venue — from the HICC to the not-so-secular Celebration Centre — there are those who argue to the contrary.
In any case, the two American hip-hop musicians had a full house at an after party hosted at the Symphony, just after they left the Celebration Centre.
But also, one of the major disappointments was the local production, Songs Out of Africa, a four-day musical extravaganza which was held at the 7 Arts Theatre in Avondale. Only a handful of a crowd paid in for what would have been regarded as a rare showcase of local talent performing music done by African legends of all times such as Oliver Mtukudzi, Miriam Makeba, Johnny Clegg, Salif Keita, Brenda Fassie and Mango Groove, just to name but a few.
Conversely, various shows by local artistes held elsewhere in the capital proved to be quite some successes against all odds. At the same time that Campbell and Brown were performing, Itai Makumbe, Zimbabwe’s male representative in the Big Brother Revolution, had a cracker of a party — his eviction party — at a local night club.
Songs Out Of Africa show director, Mark Robbins, who is also the managing director of Eclipse Productions, who brought the show, was out of words as to why people didn’t turn up.
“I am very disappointed. I just don’t get it why the turnout was so low . . . because this was a local show of world-class standard.”
Probably, people preferred to attend a show at the Twin Rivers school where a South African band was performing, he lamented. He queried why people would rush to attend a show by a foreign artiste when a local world-class production was on offer.
“Why would people support foreign artistes instead of the locals?” he wondered.
However, these are some of the questions everyone is asking, particularly the organisers and/or promoters of the shows who are now left with huge bills and other charges to content with.
Despite the publicity the shows received, the answer lies in the entrance fee charged, first and foremost, other than anything else.
The Maxi Priest entrance fee was at a whopping US$35 and the Campbell-Horace show was pegged at US$25. The Songs Out Of Africa musical was pegged at US$15 advance booking and US$20 at the door for each day.
By any measure, these amounts are relatively too expensive given that most people are still saving up for the festive season. Besides, the local shows that were happening at the same time were going for not more than US$5, which leaves one with quite some pocketful of change than paying an upwards of US$25.
Most people don’t go to these shows alone and for someone to spend US$50 for two and then require an additional US$50 to spend, would be a bit too much for most.
Some have argued that Maxi Priest was a household name in the early 90s up to the turn of the decade, but nothing new of him has ever been heard since then. The same goes for Campbell. Who would want to go to a show to listen to music they have kept on their shelves for more than a decade.
Too many shows at the same time is quite a dig to organisers as this divides the cake. When too many shows are in the offing, people are forced to save up on the little they have to attend just one of them.
Food for thought!