Arts Alive Festival manager Roshnie Moonsammy hits out at freeloaders who badger festival staff
Remember – throughout the years of the cultural boycott, South Africans missed out on seeing their favourite artists. One such artist was Fela Anikulapo Kuti. Many loved him and respected his political commitment to eradicating racism and poverty in Nigeria, and even South Africa. But, as fate has it, he died before he could visit South Africa. This year his son, Femi, the Fela incarnate, visited us. Many wanted to see him, but not all wanted to pay. A sizeable number wanted “complimentaries” – in other words, they do not want to pay so that the musician can earn a living, and the Arts Alive festival can become self-sustaining.
What these free riders pretend not to know is that the festival, funded by local government, the Greater Johannesburg Metropolitan Council and some embassies runs on a non-profit basis. It strives to be self-sustaining.
The “complimentary free riders”, however, drive the latest BMWs, thanks to the generous car perks offered by their employers – they’re invariably government, media or corporate executive. Instead of buying tickets, they prefer to harass the festival staff, phoning and paying personal visits to the office to demand “complimentary” tickets.
How then, one is forced to ask, can they respect artists if they feel their work is not worth paying for? Of course, the same free-loaders would not hesitate to spend money on booze, or much more expensive stimulants to put up their noses.
Because of them, the festival staff return less calls because they know that most are from people suffering from the “comp disease”.
The diseased in response demand to see the festival manager as she cowers under her desk, alerted by the festival receptionist of their presence. Sometimes they get their secretaries to fax requests – and from there she has to harass the festival staff on the phone.
When all else fails, the individual arrives at the Arts Alive office demanding immediate gratification. Some even threaten to report the festival staff to the powers at the Johannesburg Metropolitan Council.
The festival staff wonder, when they refuse to provide complimentaries to potentially influential people, whether the festival budgets and funding proposals will be annihilated at the next board meeting.
Exectives aren’t alone – they share the “comp disease” with some famous Johannesburg artists who are regularly seen at Mega Music hagglingwith the box office staff.
One wonders how musicians survive if they refuse to patronise each other. When their attempts fail at the front entrance, they try to gain access through the backstage, presenting themselves as the artist’s closest friend.
Sometimes they even wear designer camouflage, thinking they can fraudulently enter unnoticed. When one tries to remove them, one is verbally assaulted for “your arrogance, your gender or your ethnic origin”. “Mr Comp” may spend three hours hidden in a venue toilet wearing a R3 000 designer suit, later to emerge when the gig begins with a “crew pass” around his neck.
Meanwhile, the festival has an ever- decreasing budget from its major sponsor, and is highly dependent on the income from the ticket sales to fund the festival.
The “comp” sufferers are largely people from middle and upper income groups. All the energy and time it takes to get a “comp” is more expensive than the real value of the thing. Think of the salaries of the secretaries who are employed to beg a free ticket worth a mere R85!
There are thousands of festival patrons who support us, and we thank them dearly.
At the Salif Keita concert last week, a domestic worker called Beauty Mahlahlane arrived with her seven year old son Evan, having saved for weeks for their tickets. Evan, who was born with albinism, has seen Keita on television and always wanted to meet him. His mum says all the kids in school taunt him about his albinism and she knows that seeing Keita will give him the confidence he needs. The festival ensured that Evan got his moment both on stage and backstage with the Mansa of Mali, and we had one very happy little boy and mum.
The Oxford definition of “complimentary” is to praise, to laud – none of the “complimentary seekers” seem to fit into this category.