28 Sep 2015

Botswana is set to celebrate her 49 years of independence with a series of activities, among them, a music show dubbed Botswana Electronic Music Festival (BEMF) at the Cricket Club in Gaborone on Sept 30. 

The music festival is set to raise the bar for the Botswana entertainment industry.

However, there have been heated exchanges on social media with regards the said music festival and how it came to be. Some local disc jockeys, artists and promoters had been, via social media, up in arms calling for the boycott of the show. 

Their argument, among other things, was that locals would not benefit from the event, and they felt the show would be run mainly South Africans.

In an interview, Alan Shumba, of Provantage Media Group, a company tasked with organising and marketing the event and engaged by the government and Shadow Works from Cape Town, said they conducted some activations before and advertisements for such brands as Nivea, Samsung, Kellogg’s cornflakes and Jockey, among others.

Shumba said Provantage Media was one of the biggest media companies in South Africa. “I am part of this event in that I am part of a regional company that is called Provantage Media Group and we have been engaged to help with the marketing of BEMF,” he said.

He added that people should note that almost all the biggest brands in the world had headquarters in South Africa, and that it was them who said they were happy with the work Provantage Media Group was doing for them in South Africa.  

Also, he said it was against such backdrop that they were engaged to expand to other SADC countries and duplicate the same service they were providing to them. 

On how locals would benefit, Shumba explained that the sound equipment for the event was sourced locally.

“Apart from the Gaborone show, there will be five fan parks across the country in Francistown, Maun, Ghanzi, Tsabong and Serowe and all sound equipment was sourced locally, and we are speaking in excess of P350 000,” he said.

Again, he said furniture, tents, bouncers, bars and everything associated with the event had also been sourced locally. “For such service we did not dictate fees, but we are going to pay people what they said their services/goods were worth. Furthermore, he indicated that engaging a reputable company like Shadow Works on a short term was not as bad as people may think, but would in the long term, be beneficial to Botswana.  

He explained that the company comprised professionals who were best in everything they did. As for the P3 million, Shumba said the figure was huge just thinking about it, adding “but when you look at what is being done with it, you then understand and see sense in all this.” 

“The P3million is the cost of the whole thing, from your fan parks across the country, to sourcing materials locally, to streaming the event globally and basically everything and I can break down the figures to the last penny,” said Shumba.

Other benefits for locals, Shumba said included a free music workshop the day before the event at Westwood International School. “The music workshop will cover various topics, among them sound engineering, connection to bigger record labels, marketing music beyond Gaborone, South Africa, SADC but to the international market. 

Among the team that would conduct the music workshop, he said, were those that directly dealt with MTV events and had been doing it for more than 18 years.

One of the promoters, Gilbert Seagile aka PP, who initially complained about the BEMF, said he finally realised that some Batswana acts would benefit from the event after speaking to Shumba. 

“I had my reservations before and after I sat down with Shumba, he explained everything to me and I honestly think we have been unfair to them. This was an open tender and someone won it, that is it,” Seagile said.

However, he said he wished that some of his colleagues would engage Shumba to appreciate what BEMF was all about and what benefits they would derive from it. 

“What I understand is that fan parks will be manned by local djs in those areas and they will be using their sound systems,” he said. Ends