The threatened protest by Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) against the concert by ‘Happy’ composer and singer Pharrell Williams for retailer Woolworths turned out to be a damp squib this evening, only 350 out of an estimated 40000 protesters arriving at GrandWest.
The show had been sold out well in advance, tickets only having been available via Woolworths, but was overshadowed by Continue reading →
The City of Cape Town has been accused by ANC councillors that the Michael Bublé and One Direction concerts, held earlier this year within ten days of each other in the City-owned Cape Town Stadium, were in part funded by the City, and ultimately its ratepayers!
Reported in Die Burger, the article alleges that R2,1 million of ratepayers’ monies were used to pay for tickets and security for the 19 March Michael Bublé and 1 April One Direction concerts. R243000 is alleged to have been paid to concert organiser ‘Big Concerts International’ (sic – the company is known as Big Concerts), a private company and dominant concert organiser in our country, for tickets, and close to R500000 for security, an expenditure which should have been the responsibility of the concert organiser.
At a Council meeting of the City on Thursday Acting Mayor and Mayoral Committee Member for Transport for Cape Continue reading →
Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines
* Selling direct to wine lovers is the way to go delegates at a Wine Vision conference were told earlier this week by an international panel of speakers. Mike Ratcliffe of Warwick Wine Estate in Stellenbosch shared that 22 % of their wine sales is to members of their Wine Club.
* Prince Harry’s UK, the USA and the Commonwealth teams have flown to Antarctica, for their trek for charity to the South Pole, having been held up in Cape Town for the last four days due to bad weather.
* Big Concerts has added a third Carlos Santana concert at the GrandArena at GrandWest on 27 February, in addition to 25 and 26 February in Cape Town, and 1 March in Johannesburg.
* Bouchard Finlayson won the ‘Coup de Coeur‘ at the first Vinidivio show Continue reading →
The Sweet Service Award goes to Big Concerts for its smooth handling of the Bon Jovi and Justin Bieber concerts on Tuesday and Wednesday this week, which saw about 55000 excited Bon Jovi and ‘Bieber Fever’ fans (with their poor parents) filling the Cape Town Stadium on each of the two evenings. For the Bieber concert, special care was taken for the young ticket holders, information desks having been set up, as were cellphone charging points, to enable them to remain in contact with their friends, and with their parents waiting for them outside. Kfm also provided tips to their young listeners, advising them to not bring umbrellas (regarded as weapons of mass destruction), to be warmly dressed, and to have contact details of their parents on them. Bieber’s 39 million Twitter followers were exposed to brand name ‘Cape Town’ four times during his stay in our city, a massive free marketing bonus! If only the traffic in the city centre and the V&A Waterfront could have been managed by them too! The traffic police were visible close to the Stadium and in Green Point, ticketing to avoid illegal parking, leaving the city and the V&A jammed up with traffic!
The Sour Service Award goes to the MyCiti Bus service, for not operating its bus service during the national Golden Arrow bus strike running over more than two weeks. Whilst the City of Cape Town announced the temporary termination of the bus service due to the threatened damage to the buses by strikers, it would appear that the City’s drivers are not driving as they too are striking, being ex-minibus and Golden Arrow bus drivers! How frustrating it must be for visitors to Cape Town, having planned to use the bus service from the airport and enticed to do so with advertisements inside and outside the airport building, to not be able to do so! Furthermore, the non-operation of the MyCiTi buses caused further traffic mayhem in the city on the two concert nights this week, as all concertgoers had to drive to the Stadium by car.
The WhaleTales Sweet & Sour Service Awards are presented every Friday on the WhaleTales blog. Nominations for the Sweet and Sour Service Awards can be sent to Chris von Ulmenstein at info@whalecottage.com. Past winners of the Sweet and Sour Service Awards can be read on the Friday posts of this blog, and in the WhaleTales newsletters on the www.whalecottage.com website.