The Ballito and Plett Rage organiser and founder Greg Walsh has lashed out at the media blaming them for the cancellation of the popular end-of-year after-party for matriculants and university students.
Walsh took to Facebook calling the media industry liars who spread hysteria and panic in order to get clickbait.
Both festivals were cancelled last week amid mounting public pressure and incidents of staff testing positive for Covid-19.
It was reported that four staff and 32 revellers tested positive on 30 November- the first day of the event.
Walsh, however, believes that the events should have gone ahead and expressing anger and disappointment in his video post on Sunday.
He started off by praising the event, saying it has brought joy to students for 20 years.
“After two years of impossible, there was a build up and now a cancellation.”
He went on to explain with the build-up to rage, they presented their plans to national, provincial governments, as well as, the National Institute for Communicable Disease (NCID) and the World Health Organisation (WHO).
“There were four months of multiple presentations, and it was all backed up.
He said they put the following protocols in place: “You needed to be vaccinated to attend, you had to have a negative test on arrival, had to have it done before you came. This was ideally to stop people coming into these towns with Covid-19.”
Walsh added that they also had significant medical facilities built on site and had rapid antigen testing for all staff and all guest on the first day and fourth day planned, but with the advent of Omicron, the company invested more money to make testing available for everyday of the festival.
“You can't tell me that Ballito and Plett rage didn't work, they were a service to public health and in cancelling, we were complicit in making the situation worse.”
Walsh referred to the media pressure as extraordinary.
“It was something extraordinary to listen to the media lie, spread panic and hysteria and call on politicians and parents for us to cancel.
“What it made me realise is that we are in the lowest time of media’s commitment to its purpose. Media is there to inform you of the truth and that is not what we doing.
“What the media is doing is to get clicks, likes, shares and comments. The more your impressions go up the more you charge for adverts.
“So no longer is the core purpose of the media to spread truth, it's to spread hysteria.
“To our rage customers, I'm sorry and to you, suppliers, over 1000 people who lost work, the hotels who had cancellations.
“Media ... you need to stop blaming organisations for Covid-19. It's not our fault.
“Open the event industry, allow us to do what we are good at and stop blaming us for nonsense,” said Walsh