No more happy people The organisers of the much-hyped R Kelly concert, which was to take place in Windhoek this Friday, were at pains yesterday to explain the sudden cancellation of the event.The 2016 annual Windhoek Draught Live Music Festival had been well publicised in recent weeks and was to take place at the Hage Geingob Stadium.
After news broke that the Grammy award-winning singer, whose real name is Robert Sylvester Kelly, was no longer travelling to Namibia this week, fans took to social media to complain about the sudden postponement and demanded that they be refunded for tickets bought well in advance.
The tickets were selling at N$1 000 for Golden Circle and N$600 for general tickets.
The organisers and sponsors yesterday dodged media enquiries about the cancellation. Instead event promoter Namconcerts issued a statement saying that the R Kelly management was experiencing internal problems and that ticket sales were put on hold.
“The promoter, Namconcerts, is in negotiations with R Kelly management and a full statement will be released once discussions have been concluded,” the statement read.
The press release also stated that in the event of the concert being cancelled all ticket holders would be fully refunded.
R Kelly''s official website and other ticket sales online pages showed yesterday that the musician does not have an event scheduled on 25 November.
Namibian Sun understands that the artist has already been paid “lots of money” to perform in Windhoek, while about N$2 million has been spent to promote the show. The organisers refused to comment on this yesterday.
Namibia Breweries Limited, through its Windhoek Draught brand, and Standard Bank Namibia are the main sponsors of the event, which would have seen local acts like PDK, Gazza and Oteya, among others, performing on the night.
Not many people were thrilled with the R&B superstar coming to Namibia, though. A pressure group led by Misa Namibia director Natasha Tibinyane protested against the artist''s coming to Namibia owing to his controversial past.
In 2008, R. Kelly was acquitted by an American court after he was found not guilty of all charges of video-taping himself having sex with a minor.
Tibinyane yesterday said those who were financing the R Kelly concert are all “rapologists”. “I still won''t attend that concert and I hope it gets cancelled,” she said.