/ 12 September 2016

90% Empty: #ThankYouSABC Concert a monumental failure

A decision by the SABC’s former chief operations officer
Labour fears that the unbundling of Eskom into three entities will result in job losses. Members of Cosatu marched to demand that the budget speech takes their views into account. (Oupa Nkosi/M&G)

As we correctly predicted, the massive “Thank You SABC Concert” which took place on Saturday was a monumental flop.

Photos from those at the concert show a barely quarter full Orlando Stadium. The concert was billed to have 100 South African musicians from all genres of music in the country performing to an anticipated 20 000-strong crowd.

The Orlando Stadium seats 40 000 people in total.

This comes as no surprise at all. Ask anyone music promoter and they’ll tell you a concert of that magnitude needs months of preparation and marketing to make it a success.

Thank You SABC was only announced publicly on Tuesday, just days before it was set to happen – which raised the first red flag over whether or not this would be a success.

The second red flag rose when there was confusion over who was paying for the concert.

In the initial press release announcing the concert, it was said the SABC would be footing the bill. Later, the SABC denied this, saying it was the concerts’s organisers, among them a controversial company named Morris Roda Productions , who were paying for it.

The third red flag rose when artists expressed their displeasure over being sidelined, while known “music celebrities” had been given the platform to perform at the concert.

This video was posted on an SABC Twitter account, which shows a section of the small crowd at the stadium and seemingly appears as though the stadium was packed.

The African Christian Democractic Party has called for an investigation into the concert’s failure and more importantly, the funds wasted on it.

This article was originally published on HTXT

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