IT was a difficult toss-up between attending the I Heart Joburg Music Festival on Saturday and ANN7’s inaugural South African of the Year Awards to commemorate the 24-hour news channel’s first birthday.
The latter glitzy affair, which was held at the Sandton Convention Centre, was attended by the who’s who from the celebrity, sport, modelling to political worlds. Tokyo Sexwale, Basetsana Khumalo, Advocate George Bizos, Miss South Africa Rolene Strauss and former Proteas captain Graeme Smith along with world champion Caster Semenya.
No expense was spared for the posh red-carpet shindig, from the fine-dining table setting to the stage set up to the entertainment line-up.
Although, I couldn’t understand why controversial SABC COO Hlaudi Motsoeneng was on stage presenting an award. Currying favour with the Guptas perhaps, who knows!
The festivities kicked off with Ella Henderson haunting vocals resonating throughout the room, where comfy couches were placed at the centre for the Gupta family, with the women admittedly looking ravishing in their saris.
With Bonang Matheba, who, true to her style icon reputation, had three wardrobe changes, and co-host Chantal Rutter Dros taking care of formalities, guests were treated to myriad dance performances that embraced different nationalities and our culture too.
There were two undeniable highlights of the night though: Nicole Scherzinger’s performance and Advocate Thuli Madonsela bagging the South African of the Year honours, which saw the crowd cheering in support of her win.
A night of visual, musical and gastronomic indulgences with home-grown acts like Lira, Zahara, Mafikizolo and MiCasa impressing with their hits.
The drawn-out festivities and few technical glitches aside, the live broadcast of ANN7’s first award ceremony proved to be a hit – well, if twitter was anything to go by.
Some of the special dignitaries in attendance also wished the channel well.
Faith Muthambi, Minister of Communications, said: “Happy birthday ANN7. I think the entity has managed to drive our information revolution very well. There was much interest drawn by the election tracker during election time where the channel covered all parts of the country. I would like to say to you, keep up the good work in informing our nation and continue to reach out to previously disadvantaged people in the rural areas where information is still a scarce resource. I wish you well and I believe you will continue to empower our people with information.”
“This is a very fragile time and as a UNICEF goodwill ambassador, we always take care of children because most times they do not even reach their fifth birthday. But I want to say to ANN7 happy birthday on your first anniversary and I know you will go very far. Looking at the set tonight it looks like there is a lot of ke chang!,” noted music icon Yvonne Chaka Chaka.