Show a no show, but a carnival

Date: 30 July 2018 By: Andries van Zyl

No annual “Makhado Show” will take place this year, but a “Makhado Carnival Show”, which has nothing to do with the former, will be held. Confused? Then join the club!

Traditionally, the Makhado Municipality hosts its annual show during the last week of July. Last week, as with previous years, the newspaper highlighted the fact that the show, entitled the Makhado Carnival Show, will once again take place.

When the Makhado Municipally therefore announced earlier this week that they would not be hosting the annual show, this came as a bit of a surprise.

In an official notice to the media on Tuesday, the municipality stated that they had decided not to host a show this year because of safety issues brought about by the relocation of several of the town’s sports and clubs to their new facilities next to the show grounds. Because of all the construction work taking place, the municipality said that they had thus decided to postpone the show until next year.

The most interesting part of the media notice is, however, the bit at the end, which states: “Makhado Municipality also wants to distance itself from a person who is using its name ‘Makhado Annual Show’ to mobilize the community to the show. The municipality has no relationship with the person who claims that he or she will be hosting [the] Makhado Annual show during July 2018 and therefore we will not take responsibility to account for any act or omission occasioned by this fake annual show pretending to be held by the municipality. We apologise to the entire Makhado community for the inconveniences caused, although [it] is for better service delivery as the Mall seeks to create permanent employment for the people of Makhado.”

This part of the municipality’s notice definitely set the proverbial cat among the pigeons as they also circulated the notice on social media. The question on everyone’s lips is therefore whether any kind of show will take place this year or not.

The short answer is yes, there will be a show, but not in the usual format; instead, a carnival will be held. This carnival will not be run by the municipality but by a private company, called African Cornerstone Network, in partnership with Lufunde Communications. “I’ve never mentioned Makhado Annual Show in my posters, because mine is the Makhado Carnival Show 2018,” said Mr Ngereza Netshifhefhe of African Cornerstone Network during an interview on Tuesday.

Netshifhefhe said that they never wanted to create the idea that the two were the same thing. “Our idea was only to penetrate the economic opportunities since Makhado Municipality is not hosting the show,” he said.

Netshifhefhe, who is no stranger to hosting the annual show for the Makhado Municipality as he had done so several times in the past, was very upset with the municipality for creating a cloud of suspicion surrounding his carnival and referring to it as a “fake annual show” in their notice.

“The fact is, they never put the show out on tender this year, so we saw the opportunity … Firstly, I wrote a proposal for the whole show and that we would like to host it on 3 June. They [municipality] never replied to us. Then, on 19 June, we wrote another letter to the municipal manager to say this is our intention and we are going to do this show. It was just a formal notice to him to be aware of our intention to host a carnival. Also, they didn’t reply, so on 3 July we went to book the venue [at the municipality] and paid it up, after making a formal notification to the entire municipality to say this is our intention,” said Netshifhefhe.

It is this “turnaround” by the municipality in creating the idea that they had no knowledge of the planned show or carnival, whatever residents would like to call it, that has Netshifhefhe fuming. “We do not believe the show, or any event that is family orientated, must take place under the blessing of the municipality,” said Netshifhefhe, adamant that his event is going ahead.

Netshifhefhe said the carnival would be of benefit to all, not only to them. “There are artists who will also come to showcase their crafts. There are people who will be selling their products and people will be employed on a temporary basis. An event like this contributes towards tourism in town. At the end of the day, everybody wins. It is my opinion that the municipality should rather encourage people like us to come up with more events like this, so that they can concentrate on service delivery. We are surprised that, instead of coming on board with us, the municipality now goes out to the public with this message and creates mayhem,” said Netshifhefhe.

As for the safety of show patrons, Netshifhefhe assured the public that their safety and security would be a high priority. He said that he had met with the Makhado SAPS on Tuesday morning and that everything was in place to ensure a safe show. “We have ironed out all the issues of safety. The police are going to be there. All certificates are in place and the show is going to happen,” said Netshifhefhe.

The Makhado Carnival Show started on 26 July and will end on 28 July. The merry-go-round was already on site on Tuesday. The normal stalls, totalling more than 50, will be there, including among others, stalls with food, beverages, toys, crafts, vehicles, corporate and agriculture. The entrainment programme also includes helicopter rides, a music festival and beer garden. “…we want to make sure that we create a lifetime memory for all our patrons who will be joining us for the show,” said Netshifhefhe.

As the annual “show weekend” is not appreciated by all, especially those having to endure loud music throughout the night until the next morning, how successful the carnival will be remains to be seen. “Given more support, we believe that we could have done better,” said Netshifhefhe. As for the music festival, Netshifhefhe said that all events would run concurrently throughout.

(Also see accompanying follow-up articles Article 1, Article 2)

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Andries van Zyl

Andries joined the Zoutpansberger and Limpopo Mirror in April 1993 as a darkroom assistant. Within a couple of months he moved over to the production side of the newspaper and eventually doubled as a reporter. In 1995 he left the newspaper group and travelled overseas for a couple of months. In 1996, Andries rejoined the Zoutpansberger as a reporter. In August 2002, he was appointed as News Editor of the Zoutpansberger, a position he holds until today.

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