Club Vibe Relaunch, CTICC, 20.10.12

I was really looking forward to the Club Vibe 2012 relaunch. For years I sat in boarding school having to listen to how awesome the Saturday matinees were and at long last it was my turn to join the fun. Yes, it seems those high school desires can still be a part of one’s adult life! At least at this age, I know all about the artists on the line up and was ready for a great day out.

What made it even sweeter was that I was invited as media so off I went to the CTICC. Everything looked clean, well staffed and barricaded for the masses but it seems my high school full circle moment was not to come to fruition after all…

The CTICC looked amazing. The Club Vibe Relaunch went to ALL lengths to make it a fantastic party. The main stage was epic, crowned by a spinning 3D Club Vibe emblem, with falling balloons, fire dancers, dwarfs, men in stilts, flame throwers, confetti cannons, massive screens and epic artists but one thing was missing. An audience. Yes, an audience. There was no one there. I’d guestimate at 500 people throughout the entire day 🙁

Now a gig can still pump with a small audience but not when it’s in a 3000 person arena. The general consensus on why it was so empty was ticket price. Although DJ Jazzy Jeff was in town, he’s no Lil Wayne so to charge around R400 per ticket just wasn’t viable. If Grand Master Flash hadn’t just rocked the socks off Rocking the Daisies at R450 for 3 days (not 12 hours) then maybe there’d be hope. Capetonians are far too spoilt in music and entertainment to spend R400 on a 12 hour party.

I REALLY wish something could have been different though because all the dance floors at the CTICC were epic. With huge sound rigs, visuals, lazers and performers really to rock audiences it was a tragedy. What made it worse was that each feature was still fired off at the scheduled time irrespective of numbers. It was if the money had been spent already so the brand didn’t try to save and keep a few features back or fire a few barmen, they professionally continued producing surprise after surprise to the measly audience.

I guess there’s no amount of food bars, bumper cars and bars (with a decent selection of alcohol for once) to justify R400, even though there was an awesome lineup. If it’d been R200/ticket I’d like to think it would have been a different story. Although the event was not a success, I’d still like to acknowledge the organisers and CTICC staff. They were incredibly helpful for once (most arena staff are just robots) and I appreciated their good service. I have no idea where this leaves Club Vibe right now but I hope there is some positive spin off because they really did go all out and it’s a great pity it was for nought.

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