The National Arts Festival (NAF) has recently reported a yearon- year growth in attendance of 8.47%. The attendance figures have grown from the 2009 figure of 170 045 in 2009 to 185 776 in 2010.
The National Arts Festival (NAF) has recently reported a yearon- year growth in attendance of 8.47%. The attendance figures have grown from the 2009 figure of 170 045 in 2009 to 185 776 in 2010.
This growth, according to Festival CEO Tony Lankester, was driven largely by a strong street theatre line-up, and over 50 exhibitions on both the Main and Fringe programmes.
“We’ve shown that our artists can hold their own at a time when audience attention is being fragmented and distraction levels are high,” Lankester said, referring to the Fifa World Cup that took place at the same time as the Festival.
In a recent NAF press statement he noted that the local media said that the streets of Grahamstown seemed quiet and that the Festival had suffered at the hands of the World Cup.
“Those critics clearly didn’t try and buy tickets for any of the dozens of sold out shows, or attend any of the massive street theatre performances.
The success of an arts festival should not be determined by the shallow measure of how busy the streets are, but rather on the quality and diversity of the art, and by the size of the audience engaging with the art,” Lankester said.
The press statement said that 35 productions had sold-out performances, such as London Road, Carmen, Judith Sephuma, Telling Lies, Dekaf, and Swan Lake.
“Audiences are being more careful when booking shows, and are opting for freshness, quality and innovation over tried-and-tested work that they may have already seen at previous festivals. While stand-up comedy is still strong on the Fringe, there was an increase in the level of buzz around theatre and physical theatre work, which also flowed through to the box office,” Lankester said.
He said the audiences were definitely looking for something different this year where some of the attention was on street theatre work.
For example, the free Festival finale performance of Angeli e Demoni attracted about 2 000 audience members, making it one of the biggest Festival performances ever.
The Standard Bank Ovation Awards were introduced this year to recognise excellence on the NAF Fringe programme. A total of 36 Fringe productions received awards during the course of the Festival.
On the final day, five Gold Ovation, eight Silver Ovation and two special Ovation awards were announced. Gold winners received a prize of R5 000 such as the theatre production, London Road (KBT Productions) and silver winners received R1 000 each such as the Ubom! production, Breed.
The Encore Award, was awarded to a young company performing at the Festival for the first time, The Soil (Vumile Nomanyama); and the Standing Ovation Award, presented to a company or artist that has contributed to the vibrancy of the Fringe and establishing a strong reputation, went to Nick and Luke Ellenbogen of Theatre for Afrika renowed for their Raiders series of productions.
