By Bongani Majola
MORE than ten organisations have expressed interest in hosting and managing the annual Johannesburg Arts Alive International Festival, following the city's invitation for tenders in newspaper adverts this past weekend.
In its report to the Mayoral Committee last year, the city's Arts, Culture and Heritage Services Department acknowledged that it could not possibly run the annual Arts Alive festival single-handedly and that it was decided the event had to be handed back to professional organisations, as the city did not have the capacity to manage the festival.
However, according to the City's tourism project manager Enrico Fourie, the city has learnt from its experience and has "thus set out a clear approach to the Arts Alive festival for the future to guide whichever organisation that takes it further".
"We realised that the festival cannot be another Grahamstown arts festival in Johannesburg. We then narrowed it down to four art forms, namely, music as the dominant form, dance, theatre and art exhibition precisely in that order of priority," said Fourie.
The Arts Alive festival takes place in September every year and has been running for 11 years, with the City of Johannesburg as the main sponsor, host and key stakeholder.
Last year the event was brought forward slightly to coincide with the World Summit on Sustainable Development. The festival featured more than 500 international and local artists, including kwasa-kwasa king Kanda Bongoman, Cameroonian saxophonist Richard Bona and Congolese Mano Dibango.
Despite delegates to the World Summit and the number of artists, says the candid report, the event has had a down trend for the past years, and it "was not clear if it was luring foreign or domestic tourists and the management of the event has been wanting, especially in the respects of event and financial management, fund raising, marketing and in the selection of both national and international artists".
"After due consideration," Fourie said, "We have decided to outsource the Johannesburg Arts Alive festival completely."
The City's tender committee is due to meet on February 12 and consider the proposals from the interested events management companies. The winner of the tender will be announced soon after.
