Chronicle Editor
Mthabisi Tshuma, Showbiz Correspondent
ON Thursday night, artistes countrywide were relieved after having been given the green light by President Mnangagwa to stage live shows with a restriction of 50 people.
Unfortunately, due to a spike in Covid-19 cases in the country, the Government, on Saturday, announced stringent measures to curb the spread of the disease that come into effect today. Notable among them is the ban of gatherings which has, once again, come as a huge blow for the creative sector as it means they can no longer stage shows.
This latest suspension of the holding of events due to Covid-19 should, however, serve as a wake-up call for artistes to be innovative and seriously consider staging shows online in order to stay afloat.
Over the years, most artistes across genres had been reluctant to look for other means of making money as they relied wholly on live gigs.
But, with the Covid-19 that continues to ravage countries, the staging of live shows is likely to take long.
Covid-19 seems here to stay because despite efforts to vaccinate people, cases keep increasing, leaving creatives with no option, but to resort to online platforms.
Last year, the City of Kings and Queens held a number of online shows, among them Bulawayo LIVE Sessions, Fusion Media Group (FMG) Lockdown concerts and Creative Diversity and Social Inclusion (Credisi). In Harare, Passion Java’s Gara Mumba Iwe and Nash TV shows were a hit. So good were some of these virtual shows that they attracted corporates. Some sadly did not get much support from audiences leaving event organisers with the burden of funding the shows with no financial gain.
What was clear then was that organisers were committed to assisting artistes to stage these shows and what was lacking was support from both the public and corporates.
Looking at the recently held Bulawayo Arts Festival (Baf), which had low numbers in terms of viewership online during the live streams, it is clear that locals still are not as supportive when it comes to viewing content online.
Chronicle Showbiz caught up with some local artistes to establish how they were feeling after the re-ban of physical shows and the viability of staging events virtually.
Iyasa director, Nkululeko Dube who spearheaded the virtual Credisi show last year said staging virtual shows was a big challenge if there is no funding.
“The era we’ve entered into is very difficult as virtual shows aren’t viable without funding. It’s not easy to sell content online and be able to sustain big projects and artistes at the same time.
“Yes, digital is the future, but it’s a process. The market is not ready to buy and sell online, neither are the artistes and consumers,” said Dube.
Events promoter, Mduduzi Mdlongwa of 3D Events Management said: “I haven’t held a virtual gig, but all I know is that virtual shows don’t have that satisfactory feel for artistes and audiences as compared to live shows. Also, as a promoter, the monetary value of live shows cannot be compared with virtual.”
Mdlongwa said in as much as people may want to embrace online shows, they are restricted as most do not afford data.
“Virtual shows require people to have data which most can’t afford.”
On the re-ban of events, Mdlongwa said it was saddening as they had already started planning to host events.
“We had already started planning for shows considering that there are artistes who we had paid deposits pre-Covid-19. We wanted to clear these balances and now, we can’t due to this ban,” he said.
Geraldine Roche projects co-ordinator Khaliphile Sibanda who is currently hosting a winter drama festival at the Bulawayo Theatre said the latest ban is a major stumbling block. Sibanda said they will, however, continue with the festival, but virtually.
“We’ll continue staging the plays but with no physical audience as we were told that audiences are no longer allowed. We’ll therefore, try to stage the plays virtually which will be quite challenging because people do not have data.
“The only thing that we can do now is to post the shows on our social media page so that people can watch as and when they have access to the Internet,” said Sibanda. – @mthabisi_mthire
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