At around 5pm on a windy Wednesday afternoon, the fourth day of the National Arts Festival, there was a city-wide power outage in Grahamstown.
The municipality was quick to respond and 55 minutes later the power was back on. Various shows were cancelled and some had to be stopped mid-performance, while a few carried on aided by battery-powered torches and lamps.
At around 5pm on a windy Wednesday afternoon, the fourth day of the National Arts Festival, there was a city-wide power outage in Grahamstown.
The municipality was quick to respond and 55 minutes later the power was back on. Various shows were cancelled and some had to be stopped mid-performance, while a few carried on aided by battery-powered torches and lamps.
First time theatre goer, Martin Forsythe was very disappointed at waiting over 30 minutes in the dark for his five o’clock show, I Love You, You’re Perfect…Now Change to start at the Bowling Club and felt the lack of an emergency back-up system was very unprofessional.
A performer for New Voices at the Centenary Hall also expressed his frustration when the show had to be cancelled.
When Festival CEO Tony Lankester contacted Makana Municipality he was told that a breaker leading into Grahamstown on the Eskom network had blown but the problem had been sorted out as the breaker has been upgraded.
Fortunately only five shows were interrupted of the 500 shows being showcased at this year’s Festival and refunds and re-bookings can be made at the booking offices at the Settlers Monument and Village Green.
“We are still investigating the cause of the power outage, the problem seems to have emanated from a substation in town,” responded Makana Municipality spokesperson Thandy Matebese.
According to Matebese the Festival puts a strain on the power supply as the influx of festival goers increases the demand for power.
However he assures the city that they have dealt with problems of this nature before and that at present everything is under control.
