Kuffour explains Ghana Music Week flop

The concert was slated to be one of the biggest events for the Ghana @ 60 celebrations but ended up being an enormous flop. A video on ghanaweb.com showed a crowd at Independence Square numbering less than 30.

The event was scheduled to start at 6pm but did not commence until 11pm on Friday evening. Kuffour, who is popularly known as Obour, said the late start of the show was one of the causes for the pitiable attendance. He said part of the causes of the failure was because MUSIGA wanted the available artists to perform during the concert scheduled for Saturday night, given the late start on Friday.

Obour also spoke about the financial constraints that led to the dud concert. The government, he said, had budgeted 800 000 Ghanaian cedi ($174 000) for Ghana Music Week but only ended up allocating 150 000 cedi.

Artists like Samini and Jupitar had been billed to perform at the concert, which was made free to the public. But comments on social media reflected that the organisers’ publicity model was poor.

Commenting on the publicity, Obour said, “We used social media to advertise because we had little for mainstream publicity. Ghana Music Week trended on social media. We did our best and managed what we had to organise this event."

Turnaround on closing night

After Friday’s poor showing, the Ghana Music Week Festival came alive on Saturday 11 March, the final night of the celebration. Performances started at 6pm as opposed to the previous night's late start. Traditional dance troupes from the country's 10 regions performed dances particular to their region. And the artists billed to perform thrilled the crowd with their impressive showings.

The evening was for hiplife artists as opposed to the reggae/dancehall performers on the pervious night. Celestiine Donkor, Kofi Nti, Nicholas Omane, Tic Tac, VVIP, Tinny, Akatakyei and Ex-Doe were among those on the stage. Okyeame Kwame also pulled Obour on stage and together they performed their duet, 'Killing the Game'.

The 2018 editon of Ghana Music Week will be held from 3 to 10 March 2018.