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- The KwaZulu-Natal government has pulled out of hosting the 2023 South African Music Awards (SAMAs).
- KZN was announced as the new host of the SAMAs as part of a three-year partnership with the province's Department of Economic Development, Tourism and Environmental Affairs at the beginning of the month.
- The music awards were scheduled to take place on the weekend of 17 and 18 November at the Durban ICC.
The 29th iteration of the South African Music Awards (SAMAs) hangs in limbo after the KwaZulu-Natal government on Wednesday pulled out of hosting the event next month.
KwaZulu-Natal was announced as the host of the SAMAs as part of a three-year- partnership with the province's Department of Economic Development, Tourism and Environmental Affairs (EDTA) at the beginning of this month when this year's nominees were announced. However, marred by service delivery woes, the province was criticised and advised against hosting the R20 million event.
"We have a three-year contract with EDTA and will be consulting with our contractual partners to find out what led to this decision and carve a way forward. As such, we will advise in due course what the next steps for SAMA29 will be," Recording Industry of South Africa (RiSA) CEO Nhlanhla Sibisi told News24.
"The SAMAs remain the largest, most prestigious, inclusive and representative music awards event in the South African music landscape. We continue to attract considerable attention and support as well as market-leading viewership among televised music awards shows across the continent."
The awards, to be broadcast live on SABC 1, were scheduled to take place on the weekend of 17 and 18 November at the Durban ICC.
Sibisi said that with the awards no longer being hosted in Durban, the city and the province were going to lose out on "economic benefits", which reportedly included the creation of more than 150 job opportunities.
"As it stands, the SAMAs alone were in the process of confirming up to 350 rooms per night across various hotel groups between 12 and 20 November 2023," he said.
"These hotel groups would have further benefitted from providing accommodation to the estimated 3 500 to 4 000 South African music supporters who would have visited the province from across the country, continent and world."
This year's staging of the music awards made headlines for the wrong reasons when there were complaints that there was something "sinister" about the different amounts of money that were supposed to be invested into hosting the event. EDTA MEC Siboniso Duma was quick to rebuff claims that there was anything untoward.
"We are thankful for the support by the government of KZN to our industry that was hardest hit by the devastating Covid-19 pandemic and other calamities such as floods as well as a tough environment our practitioners find themselves in," Sibisi said.
"Unfortunately, the net losers in the sudden turn of events are the musicians and creatives who often receive the short end of the stick.
"RiSA remains committed to the cause of musicians and putting them first. We look forward to celebrating these gallant South African heroes of song and dance at an event that befits their stature."
