Wenslus Murape
Lawrence Moyo
ZIMBABWE’S leading commercial radio station, Star FM underlined its status as a media partner of choice when they utilised their massive following on all their platforms to help fend off a “Cancel Culture” campaign that would have ruined the Kingdom World Tour gospel show at the Glamis Arena on Monday.
The controversy in the build-up to the show had the main supporting acts like Takesure Zama, Tembalami, Annatoria and The Unveiled pulling out last month with social media suggesting this was related to what a section of the Christian community deemed “satanic” in relation to the main acts, Maverick City and Kirk Franklin.
This triggered a social media Cancel campaign, which sought to have the show cancelled completely.
Star FM had already partnered with the organisers as an official media partner and when the supporting acts pulled out, some rival stations started running with the withdrawals despite having previously blacked out the event.
However, Star FM, who have millions of followers on their various platforms, and the organisers went all out to remind gospel followers that the show was still on and the result was a big crowd that turned up on Monday.
The turnout could have been even better, especially if comments on the Star FM page as fans followed the livestream are anything to go by.
Many, who had stayed home, felt betrayed and this was made worse when Annatoria made an impromptu performance, telling the audience she did not know how she ended up being on stage and performing.
In an interview with H-Metro yesterday, Star FM Head of Programming, Steve Vickers was satisfied with the way things turned out.
Question: As the Official media partner what would you say about the event yesterday in terms of planning and execution?
Answer: It was a world class set-up, it was a great show, the sound system was fantastic. The way the stage was set-up with that catwalk kind of thing, going out into the crowd was brilliant because it meant that the crowd had a chance to interact more closely with these artists, who have produced music that has touched people’s lives.
I don’t know why Joyful Praise pulled out at this stage, I will know later own but it was obviously a disappointment that Joyful Praise did not take to the stage.”
In terms of the build-up to the event, all was good. The publicity, advertising for the show was good. In terms of execution it started pretty much on time. I got there very early so I don’t know much about the gates but they seemed to be well organised. We had a great spot as Star FM, great location to broadcast next to the stage.
Q: How was the turnout (a) in general and (b) as per your expectations when you got involved as a media partner?
A: The turnout was good although I do not have the exact figures but had it been the HICC then it would have been a full house. This (Glamis Arena) is a big venue and we were obviously expecting a big crowd from when we got involved because this is, no doubt, the biggest gospel show of the year.
Q: Do you think the withdrawal of supporting acts last month and an attempted “Cancel” campaign had any effect?
A: The withdrawal of supporting acts did have some impact and the social media campaign did have an effect and there would have been many more people there last night, no doubt. It’s a bit of a shame because people jump on a social media bandwagon without really looking at the facts and people can be very judgmental. They missed out.
The news conference before the show was striking how genuine these artists are and how happy they are to be on this tour and the way their music has blessed millions of people around the world, hundreds of thousands in Zimbabwe, speaks for itself.
The turnout was still good because it was almost a once in a lifetime opportunity to watch such big acts. Kirk Franklin was here for the second time, he came 13 years ago while the others were here for the first time and so it was too good to miss for many people even with that social media cancel campaign.
Q: With regards the turnout, what do you attribute the success to and (b) how important was Star FM’s big digital presence?
A: Our digital platforms did a very good job there, pushing. We were posting pretty much everyday with clips and interviews. We would like to think that this was a factor to the good crowd. The success of the event underlines our value as a media partner.
We want to partner with prestigious events like this that’s why we were very keen to be the official media partner for the Kingdom World Tour and worked well together on this, including the broadcast at the venue yesterday (Monday).
Online Reporter