DEAR Editor,-
On behalf of 2019 South Coast Bike Fest stakeholders and organising team, I extend sincere gratitude to Ray Nkonyeni Municipality’s municipal manager Max Mbili, as well as Mayor Cynthia Mqwebu, without whom the bike fest would not have taken place.
Very few people have an idea as to what it takes to enable festivals that rely on government grants to actually get off the ground.
ALSO READ : PICS: South Coast Bike Fest Mass Ride 2019
The limited Ugu South Coast Tourism resources sourcing additional funding is crucial to hosting festivals that attract millions into the local economy.
The work that went on behind the scenes between the mayoral office, under the leadership of Max Mbili and newly-appointed Ugu South Coast Tourism CEO, to pull the proverbial rabbit out of the hat to allow us as founding organisers the means to arrange bike fest in just under three months was nothing short of miraculous.
To add to this, the flash floods experienced 48 hours before the event went live almost forced us to once again cancel the event.
Through the leadership of Mr Mbili and his municipal teams, who arrived at the festival site to work through the night to repair damaged paving, it really was a team effort like none seen before.
A big thank you also to local community members, Margate Business Association and Margate Ratepayers’ Association for assisting with flood damage repair work.
The South Coast Bike Fest attracted 51 media houses, 1 244 vendors, trade and crew, as well as 6 787 bikers and a total of 13 427 attendees – 95 percent of these from outside of KZN.
The PR generated in the three-month lead-up prior to the event was a staggering R5 177 887.97.
The festival was hosted over a normal weekend with no associated public holidays and our dedicated festival team was able to fill beds and attract impressive visitor attendance from the rest of SA.
The hundreds of millions of rands this represented to our economy, the impressive marketing and PR created for the destination, as well as the hundreds of jobs created as a direct result of the festival were all made possible by the support received from municipal stakeholders under the stewardship of our mayor.
VICKI WENTZEL
Wozani Africa Events
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