03 Jun 2018

It has been roughly a month since The Hamptons Jazz Festival took place in Gaborone at Duma Fm grounds.

The festival has not been without its controversies with people peddling their agendas, truths, lies, opinions and assumptions among others.

Following its postponement from March 24 to April 28, one would have thought that the negative perceptions and talk would stop, but that was not to be as the debate surrounding The Hamptons Jazz Festival keeps raging on.

Various allegations have been levelled against The Hamptons Jazz Festival, most of them targeted at its founder and organiser, Debbie Smith.

Some of the allegations were that she had skipped the country after failing to settle her bills with artists, hotels and refunds for customers who had bought tickets and stated that they would not be attending after the postponement.

BOPA managed to locate the London-based Debbie, who eagerly agreed to respond to interview questions regarding every ball of mud that has been slanged  against her, seeing it as an opportunity to have her say about the postponement of the show and how it came about.

“Firstly, I would like to address the misconception that after the show I skipped town and came to London to run away from things I had to do. Yes, I left for London soon after the show but I was not running away from anything. For the past five years of the event, we have always been between two countries, Botswana and the UK. I have been known to do a turnaround trip in 48 hours between Gabs & London in search of items I need for this event etc. Me and Starr

Ngwenya originally started this event with our very own funds that we worked hard for, so us going back to London was because we needed more funds to pay ticket refunds and other remaining items, hence we went back to work,” said Debbie.

She noted that what most people do not know about her was that her mother was from Ramotswa and Botswana was her home and it would always be her home.

“When we are wrong we expect our elders to correct us, nurture us and one day we will be able to achieve our goal of hosting the biggest jazz festival in Botswana and have people from neighbouring countries and from afar to come and enjoy good music,” she continued.

Speaking on the refunds debacle, Debbie said they had originally agreed to refund tickets on April 25 and a total of P124 000 worth of refunds was demanded.
However, Debbie said they could not refund nor resell tickets as fans had been spooked by the permit revocation the first time around, hence they could not raise money to refund the tickets that had been returned.

“We did an update of the situation on our social media page about this and also we informed those that still had tickets that they could use them for our next event,” she said, further indicating that customers who had cancellation receipts would be refunded their monies latest by June 30 and a total of P44 000 was left to be refunded.

“For now we are working to pay up final refunds and it is going well. This is being done via ewallet as the majority of those that bought were using this service, Barclaycard, Orange money and other different ways,” continued Debbie.
Debbie did acknowledge that there were outstanding bills with some hotels and other service providers. “Just like any other business, we still have pending bills here and there, and we will sort all this out as planned and arranged with them,” she said.

Debbie said they had expected things to be better with this year’s event, noting that they were in their 5th year.

“But the initial Gaborone City Council (GCC) permit revocation threw us off guard, cost us customers and we lost funds. It is not fair because we did everything we were asked to do for us to get a permit, then two weeks after the permit was issued it was revoked,” said Debbie.

She further said there were different benefits for Gaborone to host an event of that magnitude that attracted world stars.

“We want to provide a jazz festival that will be nurtured into a meaningful, measured and sustainable annual economic event, and also leave a legacy and have an impact on the lives of the community through direct and indirect benefits,” she said.
Touching on other expenses she incurred to host the festival, Debbie said the owner of Duma Fm grounds had originally charged them P80 000 for the venue, but later changed to P120 000.

“We negotiated with him and he agreed to drop it down to P110 000,” said Debbie.

She noted that South African songstress Zahara charged them an extra R75 000 (P59 000) for performance, yet an original fee of R75 000 (P59 000) had been paid fully.

“Of the extra R75 000 (P59 000), we paid Zahara R50 000 (P39 500) before they came for the event and the remaining R25 000 (P19 750) at a later stage. We paid her a total fee of R150 000 (P119 000).”  Ends