The This Day Festival 2007’s bill of artistes boasts of not only, top-chart rated hip-hop artistes P-Diddy, Kelly Rowland, Shakira, Neyo, John Legend, Rihanna, but also the vintage reggae group, UB40. Two months after, here’s a spectator’s recap and dissecting review of the reportedly biggest concert ever staged in Nigeria - the most populous African nation.
Nigeria was visited by the world’s current best HIP-HOP professional performers and in return got blown away by the audience who sang every word of their music; in a country widely considered to have no belonging yet, in the committee of developed nations.
The high profile pedigree of hitherto globally regarded POOR Nigerians could not be better evidenced by the sheer extent of wherewithal and material sophistication on display, undoubtedly choice western fashion, radiated remarkable intelligence in the portrayed command of Hip-Hop language & lifestyle. Thanks to the extraordinaire spontaneity of a skilled show-biz master, the last of the come-on-out-of-the-crowd kids, invited on-stage by P-Diddy himself, blew not only P-Diddy but the entire hall away with his “Hi Dawg” drawl & Hi-Five slap, followed by a confident affirmation (like every other kid before him) that he is proudly Nigerian!
The tickets per person were 10K, 25K and 50K. The 10K audience made up less than a third of the total turnout. Such was the price paid by Nigerian entertainment lovers.
Car park tickets were rated 1000 (VIP) and 500 (regular) naira respectively. The VIP parking ground soon had non-off-road (Jeep) “VIP” cruisers carefully looking out for getting stuck in the sand-locked VIP-secured grounds!
Commendable visibility was achieved through placed promotions and adverts, weeks prior to the billed concert. Advertised security measures would shut the gates into the venue come 4.30pm each day of the event. A truly commendably proactive and responsible initiative, expected of a HIGH Caliber facilitator of an event this magnitude. The world’s top rated HIP-HOP artistes were afterall about to be hosted in the home of though well traveled and highly enlightened gathering, yet one not known to respect orderliness (a good number of the anticipated audience drives the daily Lagos-road traffic madness).
Show kicked off NOT AT ALL on Saturday, the first day of the scheduled event! With setting up the stage still far from ready, the festival’s Chief host took the bulls by the horns at about 6.30pm, but got walked out on, as he admitted to the paid audience that a postponement to the following day of the BIGGEST EVER, START-STUDDED CONCERT in NIGERIA had become inevitable! As impressively advertised, sold tickets were exclusively for each day’s different bill of artistes, none listed to double-feature. Dear Chief Host made no mention of how to compensate those who already bought separate tickets for each day of the festival!
The organizers left it to spectators who managed to bluff their way through the ‘closed’ doors of The Palms’ This Day Events Centre to inform their office of the “postponement”. Same This Day officials who few hours earlier sold tickets to droves of buyers were in for a rude shock. There was no holding back of expressed disappointments by the protesting ticket holders, as all recounted the embarrassing state of disorganization earlier witnessed at the venue. A gentleman complained bitterly on behalf of himself and wife, both unfortunately scheduled to travel out of Nigeria the following morning. Were they to have been in town, the next day, Sunday performance, was not to be regarded an option for the working couple? They were in fact keen on seeing a particular group from the Saturday-slated artistes, who they were excited to learn had arrived early for the festival. The husband pleaded for replacement of their tickets to be passed on to whomever they wish just, as a last resort to losing outright the value of their 50K naira tickets. There was however no This Day official to take responsibility for the situation!
Most, indeed prisoners of the situation, while one-hand cuffed by the wrist banded tickets, remarked that cutting lose the ticket wrist bands would damage the evidence of payment for the Saturday show. Others cared less as they struggled in futility to tear off what had turned out to be the day’s band of shame. The This Day Center officials were in confusion. Angry disappointment gradually calmed into sober reflections. Topical on the floor was how extremely unfortunate the crème of showbiz professionals have been brought from UK, the US and South Africa, by Nigerian organizers, to witness Nigerians once more demonstrate to the watchful eyes of a small world, how unprepared we were to be reckoned with among organized nations. Far humbling was the obvious abundance of resources that was more than sufficient to indeed host the PRIZED visitors (artistes and crew) to a heaven-country on earth, but the experience of the day was far from memorable.
As it became obvious no succor was on the way, all practically at about the same time opted to go home to lick their wounded pride, wasted time (now about 8pm, some had been at the venue since noon) and hard earned money. Some threatened to spend even more money to protest the unacceptable embarrassment while others insisted on readiness to bear the cost of repeated visits to This Day offices until they got a refund. All could not help but be appalled by the fact that none of the This Day official could offer a word on the situation at hand nor seem to know what would happen the next day!
Disarrayed programming on Sunday should not have been a surprise. Sunday presented NO UB-40! This was despite extensive publicity including This Day cover-page pictures of them arriving Lagos days before they were billed to perform. The venue, as difficult as it was to believe, was not to be ready for them on Saturday even as paid audience expectedly showed up! No APOLOGIES, in fact NO MENTION to date on the disappearance of the much publicized vintage UB 40. Could it have been considered that just a handful might have anyhow been interested in watching the seasoned band perform RED-RED-WINE among many of their other popular songs?!
Alas! The world-class acts did pull off a world-class show! Contractual clauses could have been exercised. Such however must have been the commitment of these professionals who have a value for integrity. The disregard for planning displayed by the festival organizers would not suffice as an excuse to dent their hard earned international professional reputation. For them the audience, the ticket buyer comes first.
The audience equally would not let their majority 50K / 25K naira investment go down the drain despite having to bear on the average, 60 long boring minutes between each act. Occasional DJ-music is dished out whenever the organizers seem to suddenly realize the prolonged silent interludes. Next-act arrival announcements, while on the contrary the stage was far from ready, ended up the 419 tactics shamelessly resorted to by hired anchors/presenters, in an effort to persuade the audience that the show was still on!
Refreshments had to be nothing but soft drinks at 500 naira, no edible snack was available within the premises for the audience. High Table guests however did not lack continuous supply of drinks and food. Would it be that refreshments/food services and adequate toilet facilities were not considered critical essentials for an event that was to last several hours, over two days?
No better press conspiracy could have been as effective in ensuring that after many weeks, not a single one of the entire gamut of media houses in Nigeria, observed any of these but few wanting at the biggest INTERNATIONAL show in our country. THIS DAY NEWSPAPERs, very well known to publish bold, courageous criticisms of goings-on in government, private and public affairs certainly would not be expected to wash her own dirty linen in the open.
Beyond doing a yeoman job, COOL FM’s Dan Forster made a public declaration during the event which serves as an interesting point of reflection on the role of the media in the This Day Festival ’07. With his characteristic, gutsy Naija-flava American diction, “The Dawg” announced to everyone who cared to listen that there was much to gain by being on the side of the Festival organizers! His annual Christmas Jam would not henceforth have to suffer in the hands of his erstwhile Eko Hotel hosts. This could have easily escaped as the typical “happy go lucky’ Danny’s everyday joke, had the rest of the Press clan not eventually failed to publish a close to balanced review of the event. The need to caution the embarrassing display of inexcusable irresponsibility on the part of a world class show organizer does not deserve to be lost to industry solidarity. It cannot be overlooked that THIS DAY has had the benefit of several occasions prior to this festival to learn the basic ropes of organizing class shows; thus making it difficult to extend the alibi that the level of poor planning and execution was due to lack of experience.
For the money that was spent to stage the show, sound and lighting systems indeed earned the much branded “world class” rating. Mention deserves to be made of the truck loads of equipment brought by each of the featured artistes. This though implies the promoter has to be able to support extensively extra costs and related logistics for the smooth running of multiple-act performance on a single stage. The next promoter to bring an American artiste to Nigeria had however better be ready to pay whatever demanded fees without question. Enough was shown to reassure the invited artistes that money was not a problem for Nigerian promoters, nor for the Nigerian audience at that! 50K naira tickets approximately translated to $380, 25K naira half of that.
Nigerian artistes who were advertised to perform at the festival included Tu Face, Weird MC, Asa. Thanks to a world class scheduled concert, Sasha and D’Banj were the only ones ushered the opportunity to grace the stage! Both made brilliant use of the opportunity to show that Nigerian acts have come of age to attain internationally revered status once given deserved exposure and packaging. Any attempt to however bring any of the other billed Nigerian artistes after Neyo’s performance would surely have ended up with the artistes singing and dancing to an empty hall. Patience had thinned and completely waned to the barest by the time Neyo was brought on stage. He was the last of the invited artistes from America who was worth the audience’s exhausted tolerance.
Engaged Nigerian artistes for the THIS DAY FESTIVAL 2007 should perhaps be asked to share what (if at all) experience was exchanged with the featured world class artistes. Could it be fathomed that Premier league football stars would feature in a match in Nigeria with our league players without memorable personal experiences to relive afterwards by our players? Even if it would all have been limited to the locker-room during half-time! Wyclef’s similar visit to Nigeria earlier on in fact took him into the recording studios with more than one Nigerian artiste. How does that fail to add immense value to the Naija showbiz clan?
The unabated wantonly claimed credits for staging Nigeria’s best show by This Day, equally fanned by the patronizing Nigerian press spurs one to wonder at more fundamental questions related to running a legitimate showbiz enterprise of international reckoning. Was this festival a commercial event that fulfilled all required payments? Did the engaged artistes receive their engagement fees in time and in full? What medical emergency facility was in place for both artistes and the audience as would by standard be minimally required? What impression did the visiting artistes and crew have of Nigerian promoters?
How much would foreign promoters be encouraged and motivated to invest in Nigerian entertainment industry, going by the conduct of our touted flagship events promoter, This Day Events? Who else, from where in the world, is to be brought to Naija entertainment lovers that should be worth adequate professional planning and execution? The event enjoyed an impressive audience turnout of about 6,000 in the claimed “15,000”-seater capacity hall. On the lips of many who witnessed This Day festival was the curiosity as to the commercial viability of the event. This Day Style publication can be quoted for submitting that the price we each paid to watch all six star-musicians falls short of how much it would cost to watch only one of them abroad! Should this be another fragrant exaggeration or a fact for what it is? Many questions are left to be asked about the commercial intentions or otherwise behind THIS DAY CONCERTS! Is there more than meets the eye to the THIS DAY’s concerts business?
We will continue to watch, give credit as due; while refusing to be carried away by shoddy planning and execution particularly by a facilitator, an organization that is more than adequately equipped to blaze the trail; lay a good example of observed professional standards in organizing world class events, not a private birthday party nor a touted African socio-political cause.
Nigeria was visited by the world’s current best HIP-HOP professional performers and in return got blown away by the audience who sang every word of their music; in a country widely considered to have no belonging yet, in the committee of developed nations.
The high profile pedigree of hitherto globally regarded POOR Nigerians could not be better evidenced by the sheer extent of wherewithal and material sophistication on display, undoubtedly choice western fashion, radiated remarkable intelligence in the portrayed command of Hip-Hop language & lifestyle. Thanks to the extraordinaire spontaneity of a skilled show-biz master, the last of the come-on-out-of-the-crowd kids, invited on-stage by P-Diddy himself, blew not only P-Diddy but the entire hall away with his “Hi Dawg” drawl & Hi-Five slap, followed by a confident affirmation (like every other kid before him) that he is proudly Nigerian!
The tickets per person were 10K, 25K and 50K. The 10K audience made up less than a third of the total turnout. Such was the price paid by Nigerian entertainment lovers.
Car park tickets were rated 1000 (VIP) and 500 (regular) naira respectively. The VIP parking ground soon had non-off-road (Jeep) “VIP” cruisers carefully looking out for getting stuck in the sand-locked VIP-secured grounds!
Commendable visibility was achieved through placed promotions and adverts, weeks prior to the billed concert. Advertised security measures would shut the gates into the venue come 4.30pm each day of the event. A truly commendably proactive and responsible initiative, expected of a HIGH Caliber facilitator of an event this magnitude. The world’s top rated HIP-HOP artistes were afterall about to be hosted in the home of though well traveled and highly enlightened gathering, yet one not known to respect orderliness (a good number of the anticipated audience drives the daily Lagos-road traffic madness).
Show kicked off NOT AT ALL on Saturday, the first day of the scheduled event! With setting up the stage still far from ready, the festival’s Chief host took the bulls by the horns at about 6.30pm, but got walked out on, as he admitted to the paid audience that a postponement to the following day of the BIGGEST EVER, START-STUDDED CONCERT in NIGERIA had become inevitable! As impressively advertised, sold tickets were exclusively for each day’s different bill of artistes, none listed to double-feature. Dear Chief Host made no mention of how to compensate those who already bought separate tickets for each day of the festival!
The organizers left it to spectators who managed to bluff their way through the ‘closed’ doors of The Palms’ This Day Events Centre to inform their office of the “postponement”. Same This Day officials who few hours earlier sold tickets to droves of buyers were in for a rude shock. There was no holding back of expressed disappointments by the protesting ticket holders, as all recounted the embarrassing state of disorganization earlier witnessed at the venue. A gentleman complained bitterly on behalf of himself and wife, both unfortunately scheduled to travel out of Nigeria the following morning. Were they to have been in town, the next day, Sunday performance, was not to be regarded an option for the working couple? They were in fact keen on seeing a particular group from the Saturday-slated artistes, who they were excited to learn had arrived early for the festival. The husband pleaded for replacement of their tickets to be passed on to whomever they wish just, as a last resort to losing outright the value of their 50K naira tickets. There was however no This Day official to take responsibility for the situation!
Most, indeed prisoners of the situation, while one-hand cuffed by the wrist banded tickets, remarked that cutting lose the ticket wrist bands would damage the evidence of payment for the Saturday show. Others cared less as they struggled in futility to tear off what had turned out to be the day’s band of shame. The This Day Center officials were in confusion. Angry disappointment gradually calmed into sober reflections. Topical on the floor was how extremely unfortunate the crème of showbiz professionals have been brought from UK, the US and South Africa, by Nigerian organizers, to witness Nigerians once more demonstrate to the watchful eyes of a small world, how unprepared we were to be reckoned with among organized nations. Far humbling was the obvious abundance of resources that was more than sufficient to indeed host the PRIZED visitors (artistes and crew) to a heaven-country on earth, but the experience of the day was far from memorable.
As it became obvious no succor was on the way, all practically at about the same time opted to go home to lick their wounded pride, wasted time (now about 8pm, some had been at the venue since noon) and hard earned money. Some threatened to spend even more money to protest the unacceptable embarrassment while others insisted on readiness to bear the cost of repeated visits to This Day offices until they got a refund. All could not help but be appalled by the fact that none of the This Day official could offer a word on the situation at hand nor seem to know what would happen the next day!
Disarrayed programming on Sunday should not have been a surprise. Sunday presented NO UB-40! This was despite extensive publicity including This Day cover-page pictures of them arriving Lagos days before they were billed to perform. The venue, as difficult as it was to believe, was not to be ready for them on Saturday even as paid audience expectedly showed up! No APOLOGIES, in fact NO MENTION to date on the disappearance of the much publicized vintage UB 40. Could it have been considered that just a handful might have anyhow been interested in watching the seasoned band perform RED-RED-WINE among many of their other popular songs?!
Alas! The world-class acts did pull off a world-class show! Contractual clauses could have been exercised. Such however must have been the commitment of these professionals who have a value for integrity. The disregard for planning displayed by the festival organizers would not suffice as an excuse to dent their hard earned international professional reputation. For them the audience, the ticket buyer comes first.
The audience equally would not let their majority 50K / 25K naira investment go down the drain despite having to bear on the average, 60 long boring minutes between each act. Occasional DJ-music is dished out whenever the organizers seem to suddenly realize the prolonged silent interludes. Next-act arrival announcements, while on the contrary the stage was far from ready, ended up the 419 tactics shamelessly resorted to by hired anchors/presenters, in an effort to persuade the audience that the show was still on!
Refreshments had to be nothing but soft drinks at 500 naira, no edible snack was available within the premises for the audience. High Table guests however did not lack continuous supply of drinks and food. Would it be that refreshments/food services and adequate toilet facilities were not considered critical essentials for an event that was to last several hours, over two days?
No better press conspiracy could have been as effective in ensuring that after many weeks, not a single one of the entire gamut of media houses in Nigeria, observed any of these but few wanting at the biggest INTERNATIONAL show in our country. THIS DAY NEWSPAPERs, very well known to publish bold, courageous criticisms of goings-on in government, private and public affairs certainly would not be expected to wash her own dirty linen in the open.
Beyond doing a yeoman job, COOL FM’s Dan Forster made a public declaration during the event which serves as an interesting point of reflection on the role of the media in the This Day Festival ’07. With his characteristic, gutsy Naija-flava American diction, “The Dawg” announced to everyone who cared to listen that there was much to gain by being on the side of the Festival organizers! His annual Christmas Jam would not henceforth have to suffer in the hands of his erstwhile Eko Hotel hosts. This could have easily escaped as the typical “happy go lucky’ Danny’s everyday joke, had the rest of the Press clan not eventually failed to publish a close to balanced review of the event. The need to caution the embarrassing display of inexcusable irresponsibility on the part of a world class show organizer does not deserve to be lost to industry solidarity. It cannot be overlooked that THIS DAY has had the benefit of several occasions prior to this festival to learn the basic ropes of organizing class shows; thus making it difficult to extend the alibi that the level of poor planning and execution was due to lack of experience.
For the money that was spent to stage the show, sound and lighting systems indeed earned the much branded “world class” rating. Mention deserves to be made of the truck loads of equipment brought by each of the featured artistes. This though implies the promoter has to be able to support extensively extra costs and related logistics for the smooth running of multiple-act performance on a single stage. The next promoter to bring an American artiste to Nigeria had however better be ready to pay whatever demanded fees without question. Enough was shown to reassure the invited artistes that money was not a problem for Nigerian promoters, nor for the Nigerian audience at that! 50K naira tickets approximately translated to $380, 25K naira half of that.
Nigerian artistes who were advertised to perform at the festival included Tu Face, Weird MC, Asa. Thanks to a world class scheduled concert, Sasha and D’Banj were the only ones ushered the opportunity to grace the stage! Both made brilliant use of the opportunity to show that Nigerian acts have come of age to attain internationally revered status once given deserved exposure and packaging. Any attempt to however bring any of the other billed Nigerian artistes after Neyo’s performance would surely have ended up with the artistes singing and dancing to an empty hall. Patience had thinned and completely waned to the barest by the time Neyo was brought on stage. He was the last of the invited artistes from America who was worth the audience’s exhausted tolerance.
Engaged Nigerian artistes for the THIS DAY FESTIVAL 2007 should perhaps be asked to share what (if at all) experience was exchanged with the featured world class artistes. Could it be fathomed that Premier league football stars would feature in a match in Nigeria with our league players without memorable personal experiences to relive afterwards by our players? Even if it would all have been limited to the locker-room during half-time! Wyclef’s similar visit to Nigeria earlier on in fact took him into the recording studios with more than one Nigerian artiste. How does that fail to add immense value to the Naija showbiz clan?
The unabated wantonly claimed credits for staging Nigeria’s best show by This Day, equally fanned by the patronizing Nigerian press spurs one to wonder at more fundamental questions related to running a legitimate showbiz enterprise of international reckoning. Was this festival a commercial event that fulfilled all required payments? Did the engaged artistes receive their engagement fees in time and in full? What medical emergency facility was in place for both artistes and the audience as would by standard be minimally required? What impression did the visiting artistes and crew have of Nigerian promoters?
How much would foreign promoters be encouraged and motivated to invest in Nigerian entertainment industry, going by the conduct of our touted flagship events promoter, This Day Events? Who else, from where in the world, is to be brought to Naija entertainment lovers that should be worth adequate professional planning and execution? The event enjoyed an impressive audience turnout of about 6,000 in the claimed “15,000”-seater capacity hall. On the lips of many who witnessed This Day festival was the curiosity as to the commercial viability of the event. This Day Style publication can be quoted for submitting that the price we each paid to watch all six star-musicians falls short of how much it would cost to watch only one of them abroad! Should this be another fragrant exaggeration or a fact for what it is? Many questions are left to be asked about the commercial intentions or otherwise behind THIS DAY CONCERTS! Is there more than meets the eye to the THIS DAY’s concerts business?
We will continue to watch, give credit as due; while refusing to be carried away by shoddy planning and execution particularly by a facilitator, an organization that is more than adequately equipped to blaze the trail; lay a good example of observed professional standards in organizing world class events, not a private birthday party nor a touted African socio-political cause.
