So you organise an event, hire 10 performers, and we all assume the goal is to sell tickets.
Then you throw your entire budget and promotional weight behind just one of them, because, well, it is your event and you supposedly know what you’re doing.
Come the night, you get a 100-strong crowd. Then you look at the other nine artists and wonder why they did not bring their people in.
Who are you actually looking at when you treated everybody else on the poster as a mere placeholder? Huh?
Disclaimer: Just so we’re on the exact same page, this is not a random observation. What follows is a direct analysis of the events that have taken place since January and not a specific one.
We’re talking about the entire spectrum of the industry – from the huge stadium events and heavily funded corporate gigs right down to the local clubs and lounges.
We know some musicians have, seemingly, built brands beyond others.
They have well-crafted footage from previous gigs to show their amazing standing on the logs. They’ve built networks and a fan base loud enough to be represented at the corporate decision-making table.
Naturally, these are the ones highlighted when critical thought and actual market research are not invited to the meeting.
But you’ve been relying on that exact formula for the last 20 years, and you always end up saying: “Namibian musicians do not draw a crowd.”
So you pivot. You bring in acts from other countries, and you still sell fewer tickets than an unknown ma/gaisa rocker brings in at a local hall at Usakos without any marketing or corporate sponsorship.
Eventually, you stop hoping the event actually sells tickets and just work out deals to make your profit entirely from the sponsorships.
Let’s look at the hard evidence: A month before you started asking for quotations, five local artists filled up venues independently. Yet for your line-up you highlight one or two legacy acts who have not had a public performance in six months.
When the artists who actually sold 1 500 tickets just two months before point out that your promotional strategy failed, you hit back with: “You people are given a chance, but you do not bring the crowd.”
Haha.
Why is it that an oviritje artist who recently commanded a 2 000-strong crowd could kama not bring the masses to your event?
I ask again so we can bring it home. Look at recent massive corporate gigs where local stars were booked, but their names were buried in the small print while the headliner got all the billboard space.
The organisers assumed local fans would just smell the event in the air.
Could it be that, apart from picking the wrong act to champion, you had absolutely no idea how to speak to each musician’s unique followers?
One would assume that if you want to maximise ticket sales, your expensive marketing team needs to profile each demographic brought forth by every act you book. You cannot use a Windhoek-centric, social media-based campaign to sell tickets to a crowd that follows an artist who engages via grassroots roadshows and concerts.
To actually maximise an artist’s potential, you have to give every performer bespoke promotional tools. Create custom digital flyers, fund targeted local radio spots, and run sub-campaigns to activate their specific base.
You cannot just slap 10 names on a generic poster and expect a stampede.
Instead, what we saw was a lazy approach to marketing. Or was it that you actually had no real intention of drawing a crowd at all?
Which is perfectly acceptable, provided we can all agree the real plan was just to pocket the sponsor money.
This, in most cases, is actually taxpayer dollars dragged in to fill the revenue gaps. But then, why look at the innocent artists like they did not live up to expectations?
It is a real shame. With proper targeted marketing and objective audience research, those same artists could have easily doubled the crowd.
But at your event, with the exact same lineup and over a million dollars spent, the only real crowd was the bar workers, the security officers, and the organisers.
Thank you for supporting local music, and God bless you all.
