The Sunday News
Raisedon Baya
THERE is something unsettling about Bulawayo audiences — one can never claim to know or understand them. One moment you feel like you know them and can almost predict their behaviour. Then when you are relaxed Boom! They surprise you. Talking to some friends and colleagues in the arts (this was after last week’s flop) the general feeling is that Bulawayo audiences are more at home when invited to attend an event featuring South African artistes than their own. Perhaps it’s a question of foreign is better than local — who knows?
In the past two weeks Bulawayo hosted some big music shows. First, there was the Busy Signal and Busiswa concert which had a massive turnout before it turned violent and had to be abandoned before the big acts went on stage. On that night thousands of music fans thronged City Hall Car Park and paid their $10 to see their so-called stars on stage. It was meant to be a night of fun but turned otherwise.
A week later there was another concert, at the same venue, celebrating local talent and local music. The concert, organised by ZBCtv, had no one bothering to turn up to support local talent. The City Hall Car Park was empty. I am still failing to understand how 28 of Bulawayo’s “best” bands and top musicians failed to attract a decent audience. A decent audience here can loosely be something averaging about 500 people, at least a paying audience. (Five hundred people would have translated to each band attracting at least 20 people to the show). So why did the Bulawayo crowds shun this show?
There are several reasons why people didn’t turn up. The main reason being centred on lack of cash. The second reason is that the show was not properly advertised — the only attempt at advertising was a poster via social media being pushed by one person. (How come artistes billed to perform on that night never pushed the show on their platforms?). Things being normal ZBCtv could have made a lot of noise on all their platforms — television and all the radio stations. But unfortunately, that did not happen. If it did many of us missed it.
Bulawayo has seen more “flops” than successes. There are many reasons given by people in this city about the many flops and these range from poor quality of products, lack of publicity, lack of timing, disorganisation, and lack of relevance. The list is too long. But it is not always about the mentioned reasons. Bulawayo audiences are just difficult to put in a box. No one can claim to know or understand them better.
Perhaps this calls for a focused audience building programme. Obviously this cannot be achieved by one person, one group or one organisation — but by all of us coming together. Audience building calls for unity of purpose and serious commitment by all those that have serious interest in the growth of art. Like many people have said, growing an audience is not an event. It is a process. A process that will take time, is painful, and will need a lot of investment. The time to start that process is now.
It seems like the City Hall Car Park is now the venue of choice for big musical shows. The next show to look forward to is on the 1st of September featuring Babes Wodumo, Sandra Ndebele, Andy Muridzo and Madlela Skhobokhobo.
