Let’s Not Hide Our Heads In The Sand; Ugandans Are Now More Critical

A short while ago, I was bemused to the marrow by an entertainment commentary that I landed on almost by accident. The commentator claimed that the Demarco/Wayne Wonder concert was attended overwhelmingly well. The same commentator claimed that the media houses which had reported poor attendance were biased. For a moment, it sounded like he was talking about a concert different from the one I had attended; but I did not take it seriously since I respect everyone’s opinion even when I don’t agree with it.

However, after the low turn up at the recently held Sisqo concert; we have to face the facts. We can’t continue to hide our heads in the sand and claim everything is well. Let’s instead embrace reality and try to find out what’s going wrong.

In my opinion, a number of factors are responsible for a low turn up at the recently concluded international musicians’ concerts.

I’ll tackle the choice of musicians first. Experience has shown that international musicians who have had successful concerts in Uganda are those who cut across social class and age brackets as well those who have very successful hit/hits at the time they come to Uganda. The ability to cut across a wider platform helps increase the space from which a concert will attract an audience. A successful hit just has the magic as can be traced in The Bend Over concert. 

Those two factors can be traced back to the successful concerts of such musicians as Lucky Dube; through to UB40, Shaggy, Akon and R Kelly, to mention but a few. Those similar factors were in my opinion absent from the last two concerts. Ugandan music fans are more critical and will not fall for an artiste simply because he comes from Jamaica or America.

In addition to that, successful international musicians’ concerts in Uganda have been those whose organisers left no stone unturned in the marketing arena. Remember how widely marketed the UB40 concert was! Even when UB40 was big enough, the organizers did not leave anything to chance. They explored every marketing avenue available then. I personally believe that the marketing strategy for both The Demarco/ Wayne Wonder as well as Sisqo concerts was lacking.

Finally, the bad weather supported by hard financial times helped serve a final blow to these concerts. On both occasions, heavy rain in the “hinterland” as well as drizzles at the concert venues helped prevent some numbers of people from attending.

My opinion in here is a sincere and realistic effort aimed at addressing an issue that many would not be brave enough to face. Feel free to objectively disagree with me and give your point of view. 

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