Arts council steps into Tshanda no-show fray

Courage Musariri  Entertainment Reporter
LUSSATE Marketing Promotions have reported South African musician Dan Tshanda to the National Arts Council of Zimbabwe (NACZ) after he failed to honour his contract with them and cancelled his show last Friday.Lussate Promotions had organised Tshanda’s show which was cancelled at the last minute with the musician pocketing 118 000 rand and refusing to pay back the money as stated in their contact.

Lussate Promotions director, Kingston Lussate said they had a contract with Tshanda which stipulated that he was supposed to pay back half of the amount in a case of a cancellation due to a natural cause.

“The agreement we had was that he could pay back half of what we gave him, if there was a natural disturbance, such as sickness or death but in this case he is the one who cancelled without any sound reason.

We expect him to pay us more than half of what we gave him and we have reported him to the police, but it is hard for them to act since he is in South Africa,” he said.

Lussate said Tshanda is proving arrogant each time they try to talk to him and is not willing to pay back the money.

“We have tried reasoning with him in order to reach an amicable deal, but he is not cooperating. We have written to the National Arts Council and hope that they together with the police will take swift action on the case so that we do not lose such an amount of money in such a way,” he said.

Lussate said it was wrong for Tshanda to blame them for the cancellation since he is the one who called off the show.

“He only told us at the last minute that he was not coming and we had to run around, trying to inform fans of the development and avoid misleading the public but still he wants us to appear as a disorganised company to fans,” he said.

He refuted claims by Tshanda that they had threatened him with death.

“We did not threaten anyone and no one except for me and my brother Byron, communicated with Tshanda. I do not know where he got the threats from but they were certainly not from us. We are following proper channels in dealing with this matter and we have not threatened him or his band members,” he said.

Lussate said the matter was now being handled by the National Arts Council and the police.

“We expected Tshanda to co-operate with us, so that we work together for the benefit of the fans, but he is not coming through. We wanted a good work relationship with Tshanda since he is a famous artiste and is loved in many countries. This is just ruining his name and he should know that,” he said.

Dan Tshanda and his Dalom Music artistes were expected to hold a Splash concert last Friday at Amphitheatre.
The much hyped gig was however cancelled on Thursday as Tshanda indicated that he could not make it.

Tshanda said he cancelled the show because he had not been paid in full although receipts in possession Lussate Marketing indicate he had was paid the 118 000 rands he had asked for.