Diamond City Concert Flop; What in the world happened?

THABANG REGOENG

The organizer of the Diamond City Concert, Bruce Nkgakile has blamed late ticket purchases for the shock poor turnout at the show which was held at the National Stadium in Gaborone over the weekend.
While Nkgakile believes the show achieved their mandate of promoting Botswana’s urban tourism only about 9000 in the 22 500 capacity National Stadium turned up.
“I think we had about 5 000 people in the golden circle area and we had a few people for standard prices. The issue was not high-ticket prices or anything, we all know Batswana always buy tickets late so we cannot control that,” he pointed out.
Nkgakile however pointed out that the numbers may not always tell the whole story and that from their end, they are happy with how the concert unfolded. “I know people will look at the numbers and think we did not do well,but that is not the case because sponsors came on board so we did not even make a loss from the show. At the end of the day our brand is recognized now, and we have managed to promote local urban tourism,” he told Time Out.
The Diamond City Concert which was headlined by Nigerian artists also featured star studded acts like Ringo Madlingozi, Freshly Ground, Sjava, Ban T, and 23 other local artists. Despite the poor turnout, Wizkid’s stage performance kept revelers glued to the stage with his unique dance moves. The crowd could not resist ‘star boy’s electrifying performance and sang along to his famous singles Caro, Ojuelegba and Show you the Money.
In between Wizkid’s performance, Time Out managed to speak to his manager, Sunday Are, who lauded the concert organizers and local artists, singling out Hanceford Han C Magapatona for praise.
“Look our wish is to always work with other international acts, so if we find any good artist from Botswana we are going to take him on board and produce good music. Yes, we met with that young Botswana artist (Han C) on sound check and complimented his work,” he revealed.
The concert brought to a close the Nigerian afro pop artists invasion in Botswana which has seen Davido and Tekno Miles headline St Louis Fest and Fables respectively.