Ups, downs of Sand Festival

It would be unfair to describe the just ended 2013 Sunbird Sand Festival in a word.

From the onset to the final day, the three-day festival exposed both strengths and weaknesses.

However, as the story about the festival is told, sticking on the lips of many is the word ‘flop’ which is attributed to the failure of the guest artists, South Africa’s Big Nuz, to grace the festival.

Despite being popular in South Africa, very few people know Big Nuz’s music in Malawi. Some people who patronised the Sunbird Sand Festival at Nkopola Lodge in Mangochi were not particularly interested in the guest artist.

“I do not know Big Nuz. I came here to have fun and watch some performances, not particularly for Big Nuz. I really wanted to watch Paul Banda and do some swimming in the lake,” said one of the patrons, Dorica Jonas.

But another patron who looked forward to watching the SA group could not hide his disappointment: “I am angry that Big Nuz did not perform. I paid K8 500 to kill three birds with a stone—watch the guest artists, some local artists such as Paul Banda and have fun in the beaches, “said another fan, Gertrude Tsisi.

Adding salt to injury was the fact that other popular artists in Malawi, B One of Zambia and Maskous of Mozambique, did not make it to the festival. Only Zambia’s Organised Family and Zimbabwe’s Nikk gave the festival a foreign touch.

Nevertheless, the list of local artists who performed during the festival was attractive.

Over 50 artists offered the audience more than music and gave the audience a satisfactory performance. Jokes, acrobatics and poetry were also on the menu.

Only Soul Raiders and Joe Gwaladi did not make it. There was no communication as to why they failed.

Big Nuz’s absence was also communicated at the last hour of Saturday’s performance when patrons were anticipating to watch the guest artists on stage, especially with continued assurance from organisers that the artists would perform.

Around 3am on Saturday, director of the festival Lucius Banda came on stage and announced the sad development: “I am apologising to you all that Big Nuz has failed to come. The crew missed their flight, but we are doing everything possible to bring them so they can perform on Sunday afternoon.”

The reaction from the audience was disappointment, but it did not provoke more anger as rumours had already circulated that the crew would not make it.

Sound and instrumentation were other challenges the festival met, especially on the first day. There was poor quality sound messed up by poor instrumentation that predicted more flops the following days but thanks to sound engineers, Saturday and Sunday performances were up to standard.

Master of ceremonies and sound controllers also exposed some unprofessionalism in their work. On several occasions the master of ceremonies said loudly, ‘Sound controller, can you raise the main microphone!” and later on “can you raise the keyboard sound!”

Like at any event, thieves took advantage of the festival to steal from people.

However, there were only two serious cases which were reported to the police at the venue. Some thieves stole hand bags and money in cars. An unfortunate woman also lost her phone to thieves outside the venue.

Nonetheless, security was tight at the gate, along the fence and inside the venue. Sunbird also ensured that food and drinks were available at all times.

In an interview, Banda said they have learnt a lot of lessons from this year’s festival, promising improvements next year.

“It was a successful festival only that it was messed up by absence of Big Nuz, but our survey has shown that people enjoyed the performances by local artists.

“We continue to apologise to our fans and we are happy that Big Nuz manager Ntokozo Khati confirmed that the group’s failed after checking in at the airport and that they received our payments and air tickets. Next year we will check this in advance and ensure the guest artist comes,” said Banda.