Tag Archives: Good Hope Centre

Cape Town Tourism celebrates 10th anniversary with colourful, fun, and festive AGM!

CapeTownTourism AGM Cake Whale CottageLast night Cape Town Tourism held what many say is the best AGM ever, with a dynamic and funny keynote speaker Vusi Thembekwayo, and a very entertaining Anton Groenewald from the City of Cape Town  Tourism, Events, and Marketing Directorate, being the highlight of the event held at the Tsogo Sun Cape Sun, which celebrated the 10th anniversary of Cape Town Tourism since its re-invention in 2004.

I arrived late, returning from Franschhoek, as Groenewald was speaking.  He kindly gave me his notes, for use for writing this blogpost.  His Mayoral Committee member for Tourism, Events, and Marketing, Councillor Garreth Bloor, was present, and many a joke was at his expense.  Groenewald started his talk by reflecting on the past three years in which he has headed up theCapeTownTourism AGM Anton Groenewald Whale Cottage Tourism Directorate of the City, and has spent R1,5 billion.  He confirmed the three-year agreement signed with Cape Town Tourism, which came with a promise of R120 million over the next three years.   Reflecting on the successes of the past year, Groenewald presented its highlights as being World Travel Market Africa, a collaboration with Thebe Reed, which attracted 4500 trade visitors and 220 media, and for which the city has signed for another two Continue reading →

Cape Town International Jazz Festival positions Cape Town as Jazz Capital of Africa!

Jazz Festival Banner Whale Cottage PortfolioAt the media launch yesterday of the 15th Cape Town International Jazz Festival at the Cape Town International Convention Centre Mayor Patricia de Lille said that the goal of Cape Town is to become the Events Capital of Africa, and with it the Capital of Jazz in Africa, attracting 37000 Festival goers.  An exciting line-up of international and local jazz artists was announced at the launch.

The launch was addressed by a number of speakers. Billy Domingo, the Chief Operating Officer of espAfrika, the events company organising the Jazz Festival, was a witty MC for the event.  Rashid Lombard organises the musical side of things, and announced that since ticket sales opened last month, all two-day passes have been sold,.  There are about 500 day tickets available for each of the two days.  The event is a team effort, within their company (of mainly ladies he joked) and also with the City of Cape Town.  They want to create a legacy through the event, which includes a training and development Jazz FEstival Rashid Lombard Whale Cottage Portfolioprogramme which has already seen six students study at the Berklee College of Music in Boston in the USA.  Job creation is another goal.  Lombard proudly shared their Social Media statistics, having more than 14000 Twitter followers, close to 9000 Likes on Facebook, and 140000 YouTube views.

Lombard also presented the eagerly awaited line up for the Cape Town International Jazz Festival, which includes top international jazz artists Level 42, Shakatak, Eryka Badu (but not mentioned in the media release), and Abdullah Ibrahim and Ekaya.  Other international artists are Andreya Continue reading →

City of Cape Town’s T.E.A.M. is ‘keyholder that can unlock tourism to Cape Town’!

Yesterday afternoon Anton Groenewald, Executive Director of the City of Cape Town’s new TEAM (Tourism, Events, Arts, Marketing) Directorate, addressed the French networking group CAP40 at the Alliance Française on the topic ‘Perspective on strategic and policy intiatives to grow the Tourism business in Cape Town‘.  He was described as the ‘keyholder that can unlock tourism to the Cape’. Groenewald has become the most powerful person in Tourism in Cape Town, and has a considerable budget.

Groenewald is an interesting man, very honest (often at his own expense) and direct, very goal-orientated, non-political in his actions, and charming even though he may be ruthlessly honest.  He is not always ‘media-correct’ in his honesty, yet he does not seem to mind being quoted, no matter how sensitive his response may be to the parties he may be commenting about, as we discovered last year when Cape Town Tourism was blowing its own horn about the number of Twitter impressions it had created by inviting four international bloggers to the city. For Groenewald it is all about the bottom line, his mantra being ‘commercialisation’ to achieve revenue targets. His department has promised Cape Town Tourism R117 million for the three year period from 1 July 2013 onwards, but with demanding revenue and commercialisation targets to be achieved. He certainly means business, and was honest in admitting that a head of Cape Town Tourism who has been in the position for nine years no longer is fresh enough to be on top of her game.  He confirmed that its outgoing-CEO Mariette du Toit-Helmbold did not need any encouragement to not renew her contract.  They will shortly start recruiting a replacement CEO nationally as well as internationally.  His no-nonsense attitude shows when he stopped Cape Town Tourism PR Continue reading →

‘Searching for Sugar Man’ movie about Rodriguez boost for Cape Town tourism!

‘Searching for Sugar Man’ is a recently released documentary about the 1970’s American singer Sixto ‘Jesus’ Rodriguez, who sold more records in South Africa than did the Rolling Stones at that time.  It tells the story of the search by two South Africans and their chance find of Rodriguez, against the backdrop of beautiful (if very ‘Seventies) filming of Cape Town’s icons, including Table Mountain, Camps Bay, Lion’s Head, the city centre, Signal Hill, and the ocean road alongside the Twelve Apostles.

Stephen Sugar Segerman from Cape Town was intrigued by the success of Rodriguez in South Africa, having sold 500000 records locally but appearing to not have made it internationally.  He wondered what had happened to Rodriguez, having heard a rumour that the singer had committed suicide.  At the same time journalist Craig Bartholomew Strydom from Johannesburg was intrigued by the same question, and in the 1990’s he launched an investigation, to find out more about Rodriquez.  Segerman started a website, using the ‘Missing Persons’ milk carton device to request anyone with information about Rodriguez to contact him.  Bartholomew Strydom tried to trace the singer via the three local record distributors, paying royalties to Sussex Records in the USA.  Rodriguez’s lyrics of his two records were analysed, and this led them to a town called Dearborn, in Detroit, where the singer lived   One of the singer’s daughters saw Segarman’s website, and he received a call from her, and later from her father. The singer was overwhelmed to hear how famous he was in our country, without ever having been, having given up performing to become a construction worker, to survive financially.

The documentary tells the happy end of the Rodriguez story, in that the singer and his daughters were invited to South Africa to perform in 1998 at six sold-out venues (including the Bellville Velodrome in Cape Town) around the country. Rodriguez returned to South Africa four times to perform for his local fans. Local writer Rian Malan was interviewed for the film, and he described how difficult it was to extract information from Rodriguez, reflecting his ‘mystery’ nature.  The film reflects how humble Rodriguez and his family were when they first arrived in Cape Town, surprised that the limousine awaiting them at the airport was for them, and expressing surprise at all the posters advertising his concert on the way from the airport.  It also is a reminder of our country’s censorship past, with TV banned (until 1976), and the SABC banning some of Rodriguez’s songs, the offending ones being scratched on the LP in the SABC library, to make them unplayable.  Rodriguez’s music became the ‘anthem’ for unhappy young South Africans, especially students, who were already rebelling against the political situation in the country, which had led to sanctions, and a freeze on international music acts visiting our country in the ‘Seventies.

One of Rodriguez’s daughters fell in love with the bodyguard looking after them on one of their Cape Town visits, they married, and now Rodriguez has a South African grandson!

Segerman (who has a record shop Mabu Vinyls on Rheede Street, off Kloof Street – photograph) is the key to Rodriguez now achieving the fame he deserved forty years ago. Segerman met Swedish documentary maker Malik Bendjelloul, told him the Rodriguez story, and that sparked his interest to make the ‘Searching for Sugar Man’ movie.   It debuted at the Sundance Festival, and won two awards.  Segerman has documented the search for Rodriguez.  If it had not been for Segerman’s keen interest in the mystery singer, assisted by Bartholomew Strydom’s investigative journalism, Rodriguez may never have had a second chance at fame, and Cape Town would never have featured in the Rodriguez story or movie!  With international distribution of the ‘Searching for Sugar Man’ movie, Cape Town has a fantastic international marketing platform, even if the images are very dated.

POSTSCRIPT 27/9: ‘Searching for Sugar Man’ has achieved critical acclaim. The new 2012 soundtrack with the same name as the movie has been released, and has made 13th position in the Swedish charts, and 24th in New Zealand.

POSTSCRIPT 25/10: It was announced today that Rodriguez will perform at Grand West on 20 February.

POSTSCRIPT 10/1: ‘Searching for Sugar Man’ has been nominated for an Oscar in the Documentary Feature category, it has just been announced, the best news for Cape Town!

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com Twitter: @WhaleCottage