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The festival really captured its theme, Bulawayo Blooming. Various events were held all over the city during the six days of the festival.
Festival spokesperson Nkululeko Nkala expressed his appreciation of the rave reviews that the festival got, as it showed the impact that the festival had on the people of Bulawayo.
“It is always nice to get compliments about the festival, because it shows that our efforts are coming to fruition. There is no doubt that the festival will continue to be bigger with each passing year,” said Nkala.
He said as organisers, they will not let the high standards they have set this year go down, as work on next year’s festival will begin soon. Nkala said it was pleasing to note that the festival was improving with each year.
“The standards are improving and next year it will definitely be better than this year,” he said.
His views were also echoed by festival director Raisedon Baya who said the festival was getting bigger and better each year.
He said that the success of the festival highlighted the fact that local artistes could stand on their own feet as it managed to draw big crowds without the presence of any international acts.
“What the festival has shown is that local artistes can do well on their own. There is no need for us to invite international acts to hold world class shows. We only had international artistes for the poetry show and even then our local poets stood toe to toe with their regional counterparts,” said Baya.
He said the people of Bulawayo deserved special mention for supporting the festival as they thronged even those venues where they had to pay.
“Throughout the festival we had full houses at most events including where the fans were made to pay. We would like to thank the people of Bulawayo for their support, while also encouraging the corporate sector to in future also support us,” said Baya.
National Arts Council of Zimbabwe executive director, Elvas Mari commended the organisers of the event for staging a spectacular show and praised Baya for putting together a show that would not only be embraced in Zimbabwe alone but internationally as well.
“The leadership of Intwasa has to be commended for the show they put together. Intwasa has grown over the past eight editions to a festival that no art enthusiast can ignore when they visit Bulawayo,” said Mari.
He urged the corporate world to give support to the festival and the arts sector in general.
“The arts are actually the lifeblood of business. We are looking forward to a win-win situation between the two industries because as the National Arts Council we believe both can benefit from the good relations,” said Mari.
He also praised the people of Bulawayo for attending the festival in their numbers, pointing out that the closing ceremony had a cross section of the community.
Local tribal house DJ, Sir Black Cee thanked the organisers for putting up a spectacular show. He said they made sure that a wide variety of artistes participated at this year’s festival.
“It was great to have house music at this year’s festival because it shows that the genre is now being recognised at platforms like Intwasa where stars are born. It was a great move on the part of the organisers and a lot of DJs were inspired,” he said.
derick.khumalo