Pretoria - Money from the City of Tshwane purse spent on the cancelled TribeOne Dinokeng music festival appears to be nowhere near being reimbursed.
City of Tshwane spokesman Lindela Mashigo said the metro was still consulting with its legal team and would pronounce on a course of action at the appropriate time.
Organisers of the music spectacular - led by Sony Music Entertainment Africa - pulled the plug on the gig that was to take place outside Cullinan in September, claiming the city had not met the infrastructure development deadlines in time.
This was denied by the city which countered that the organisers had run into financial difficulties and did not sell as many tickets as they had hoped.
The festival, billed as Africa’s biggest music event yet, was to be headlined by hip hop star Nicki Minaj with performances by 150 other musicians from all over the world. It was to be held over three days in the style of the Glastonbury Festival in England.
The council also argued that the organisers had chosen an open space which had no infrastructure for the venue and had asked the city to develop roads, install water supply and electricity and prepare the stages, all of which the city had delivered on time.
The city entered into a three-year R70 million contract with the organisers and had paid R25m for the debut festival. It is the R25m and possibly other related costs and damages that the city vowed to recoup from the organisers.
The money was used to secure artists, including a non-refundable R10m to Minaj, marketing and promotions. However, it later emerged just 4 000 tickets of the estimated 100 000 had been sold.
The city had budgeted R40m for infrastructure development in the area, but last month various departments involved in the event indicated in their final report that there was a saving of about R22m.
After the event organisers sent a notification letter to cancel the event, the city challenged the decision in the high court in Pretoria in an attempt to keep the festival alive.
The city said it tried to meet the event organisers in a last-ditch attempt to save the festival and suggested ways to salvage it, including a change of venue to Loftus Versfeld or changing the date to early next year. After the efforts came to naught, next was the court, but the matter did not make it to the roll.
The city’s spokesman Selby Bokaba said at the time the city planned to take the matter to arbitration.
In replying affidavits, the organisers made it clear that they had cancelled the contract with the artists, rendering it impossible for the festival to go ahead even in the event that the court had ruled in the city’s favour.
The city endured a backlash from all quarters as it engaged in a public spat and blame game with the organisers.
The DA served notices on the city and the organisers in terms of the Promotion of Access to Information Act to obtain all documents and information related to the festival, but that has yet to yield a positive result.
Pretoria News