WE ARE GRATEFUL, BUT …

MBABANE – Grateful. Following the declaration by the Prime Minister Ambrose Dlamini that effective from the past Monday local events would be allowed to operate with a maximum of 100 people per each venue, organisers and artists have reacted with differing statements. 

Some local entertainers have responded with excitement as they have started advertising their events, while others shy back from continuing with their proposed events. 

This is also after the Prime Minister insisted that event’s organisers needed compliance certificates from the Eswatini National Council of Arts and Culture. 

Opportunity

Speaking to popular mainstream rapper Illa Penboy, he said as an artist he was grateful for the opportunity to make it back into the industry after the seven months of the partial lockdown, which is still being gradually eased. 

“It has been too long and we wish the process would be fast tracked because we feel as though we will not be making any income through the 100 people,” he said. 

Local comedians named the Merchants of Bottomless Laughter’s spokesperson Mzameni Mpanza said they were thrilled by these developments as he mentioned that these past seven months were long but were needed to give them time to come back into the scenes bursting at the seams with new and exciting content. 

“We cannot wait to once again delight the masses with an all-round observation of Ministry of Health and the World Health Organisation’s guidelines,” he said.

While other event organisers welcomed consideration to open the industry and have 100 people, Platinum Concept’s Khulekani ‘Karly B’ Mamba said they welcomed and appreciated the eventual decision to open, although it was long overdue, however, the consideration should have been open to venue size as was the case in other sectors. 

Mamba highlighted that what would be very essential now, was an engagement on how best the entertainment scene could be revived as it had suffered a huge blow and was currently in a terrible space. 

appreciated

“100 people are appreciated, however, honestly speaking, with such numbers we hardly cover any expenses for events,” said Mamba.

Meanwhile, comedian Gedlembane’s manager Simiso Mabundza shared that this was a commendable move by the government; however, he felt that the government should have been specific about where the 100 people maximum applied.

He preferred that indoors happening indoors should have a different minimum capacity from those hosted indoors. 

“This would mean that we increase the cost of tickets in order to be able to pay for costs involved in hosting an event, which people cannot afford,” he said. 

It is worth noting that although the dynamics of South African and Eswatini event scopes are different, the President Cyril Ramaphosa of the Republic announced in a press briefing held on September 26 that venue holders were now permitted to host people occupying up to 50 per cent of each venue’s space capacity.

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