The Tshwane municipality’s department of environmental health is to take a closer look at food and drink arrangements at future music concerts held in Pretoria, a city spokesperson said on Monday.
On Saturday, the Coca-Cola Colab Massive Mix concert at Supersport Park in Centurion — featuring a host of local artists and several international acts, including Metallica — was attended by more than 42 000 people.
On Monday, Beeld, the Citizen and the Pretoria News newspapers all carried front-page reports of concert-goers complaining that there was not enough to eat and drink. (Also read the Mail & Guardian Online‘s report).
Some people paid about R40 for a beer, as the queues for cold drinks and water became longer.
”I stood in a queue for four hours and when I got to the front they closed the bar,” one reveller told Beeld. One concert-goer told the Citizen that he had almost gone into a diabetic coma due to not eating.
The board of Titans Cricket, which owns the stadium, said the whole stadium was rented out to the event organisers.
”They assume full responsibility to ensure that all arrangements are in place for the expected crowd attendance,” the Titans board said in a statement.
Promoters Big Concerts said catering rights were in the hands of separate companies and they were briefed beforehand on how many people to expect.
Antoinette Mostert, spokesperson for the municipality, said under the relevant regulations organisers are supposed to be inspected by officials of the environmental health department.
”We were not contacted and no arrangements were made beforehand,” she said.
She said officials would have required adequate provision be made, and would also have inspected the place where food was prepared, had the department been informed.
Mostert said inspectors will take a closer look at events to be staged in the city in future.
Pretoria is not new to events drawing large crowds. It has hosted presidential inaugurations, rugby, cricket and soccer matches, and the Africa Aerospace and Defence shows, which draw up to 125 000 people a day.
Rock concerts have included the Smashing Pumpkins. Robbie Williams is the next big international act set for a show in Pretoria, for a sold-out Loftus Versfeld in April.
The Coca-Cola Colab Massive Mix concert moves on to Durban on Tuesday and Cape Town on Saturday. — Sapa