Kuru fest organisers resume initial schedule
Spira Tlhankane | Friday August 17, 2018 13:04
The organisers on Tuesday had announced that the event was postponed due to a date clash with the Botswana Democratic Party primary elections. “After a full day’s meeting today, the event organisers agreed that there was no way the festival could take place next weekend.
“All of us - Kuru, Dqae Qare organising the festival apologise for the inconvinience,” read the Facebook post that was later deleted. This caused major confusion and anger amongst the fans of the dance festival.
Art & Culture contacted Kuru Development Trust director Mangana Mangana who confirmed that indeed they will go on with the festival as planned. He said after sitting down with relevant stakeholders, postponing the event was one of the considered options, but after a thorough evaluation they realised that there was no need to postpone the event to next month.
“Yes, the BDP primary elections were amongst the factors, but we had to consider how the postponement would have affected our stakeholders. Our patron Ponatshego Kedikilwe also agreed that we continue as planned,” he said.
The event coordinator, Greg Laws also cleared the air in relation to the posts about postponement of the Kuru Dance Festival on Facebook.
“The reason for considering postponement was very simple. If the BDP primaries were being held on the same day, how will this effect attendance at the festival, especially those travelling long distances? A suggestion was made to postpone the event to September, but was withdrawn after consultation with the Patron and the Sponsor,” read the Facebook post.
Laws said it had nothing to do with the comments on the incorrect posting on their Facebook page.
“The decision was taken hours before the post on this page.
The Kuru Development Trust who own the festival are an a-political Community Trust. I emphasise again that the suggestion of postponement was entirely linked to the concern about attendance,” he explained.
Laws said the ticket fees are a crucial source of income to the Kuru Development Trust in their work in D’Kar and this was the only consideration when assessing the potential impact of the last minute announcement of the BDP primaries.
“We apologise for the confusion that the announcement has caused and we look forward very much to welcoming you on August 24 and 25, 2018.”