Pretoria - Last-ditch efforts to salvage this weekend’s TribeOne Dinokeng music festival shifted into top gear on Monday, with attorneys in discussion with the judge and city leadership convening an urgent special meeting.
The three-day festival, headlined by Nicky Minaj with performances by 150 local and international musicians, was to take place in Cullinan from Friday, but has been cancelled.
Attorneys for the City of Tshwane and organisers, TribeOne Festivals, spent most of the day behind closed doors with Judge Eben Jordaan, trying to break the stalemate.
In Centurion, the city’s scheduled ceremony for members of the mayoral committee to sign performance agreements was postponed till further notice due to the meeting to discuss the ill-fated festival.
American rap duo Macklemore & Ryan Lewis took to social media to express their disappointment with the cancellation of the festival.
The Can’t Hold Us hit-makers wrote on their Facebook page: “South Africa, we are supper bummed about the TribeOne Festival being cancelled. We were really looking forward to this show and hope to have the opportunity to perform for you soon.”
The City of Tshwane turned to the Gauteng Provincial Division of the High Court, sitting in Pretoria, to force the organisers to go ahead with the festival, originally scheduled to start this Friday.
The matter was expected to be heard on Monday but postponed to Thursday. On cancelling the festival billed as the greatest of its kind on the continent, TribeOne argued that the city had not met the infrastructure development deadline that had been agreed upon. But the city hit back, saying it performed its obligations in terms of the agreement.
At least R65 million had been spent on the event - R25m paid to the organisers as the city’s contribution for the first of the three-year agreement and another R40m on infrastructure development.
There were “certain financial obligations” the city could not disclose as the matter was before the courts. The city has a potential damages claim it could pursue if the festival was not be salvaged.
The organisers paid a non-refundable R10m to Minaj, who was to perform in Africa for the first time. The SA Municipal Workers Unionwas disappointed with the money spent while local talent was facing hardships and exploitation.
Pretoria News