For many major music events in Zimbabwe, it has often been that a few missed editions mean a journey into obscurity and certain death. This has been the story for more than a few festivals, none being more high profile than HIFA (RIP festival yemarasta nevarungu). While the appetite of the population for outdoor festivals and concerts is forever voracious, the loyalty of the audience is fleeting.
So although an event may comeback from a few minor missteps, it may return to find it's patrons in love with a new mistress or simply distrustful that the event can once again be what it was. For a moment in time, this seemed like the fate that was going to befall Unplugged, one of Harare's premier music festivals.
After coming back from a Covid-19 enforced hiatus in 2022, 2023 saw the event almost nonexistent from our calendar. It almost felt we had seen the festival's last edition. However revitalised by a partnership with Coca Cola, Unplugged returned with a pivot that saw it hosting the global Coca Cola Food Festival concept. And 2024's first edition of the event was a celebration of 10+ years of Unplugged.
While there was certainly a feeling of trepidation at Unplugged's return, the event was sold out. Food and music lovers were reunited with a long lost soulmate. This rang true with the success of the year's subsequent editions.
The festival was headlined by Murumba Pitch, Felo Le Tee, and Sha Sha respectively, alongside a host of local talent. Unplugged was back like it had never left, and it wasn't just satisfying our need for live music but the desire to explore the world through our palates. While we still have bigger music showcases, it was undeniable as the biggest thing on the foodie calendar.
If we still had any doubts to festival's draw factor, they were wiped away at the event's December edition as we bumped into a group of friends who had driven 150km from Ngezi, just to get their first experience of the festival.
We caught up with the event coordinator Ellinah Chipumha to talk about the festivals return in 2024:
How does it feel to once again be a regular feature on Harare's event calendar?
EC: It’s been a tremendous year for us. The pivot to a food festival has been really well received and it’s opened up new demographics for us.
What was the hardest part about coming back from your setbacks in the previous year?
EC: We thought it would be managing perceptions, but actually somehow that’s taken care of itself. It appears people understood the offering instantly. Partnering with Coke is also a huge part of the magic.
How did you manage to keep going when the event was seen as silent in 2023?
EC: We took it in our stride and accepted that after we’ve years, you are going to have low seasons too. That’s the nature of business and that’s the nature of entertainment. We are blessed to have come this far at all. More generally, last year was a very tough year across the board for most businesses, and again that’s going to happen from time to time.
How was it partnering with Coca Cola last year?
EC: Look, Coke is a brand that invests massively in its partners and that translates across virtually all event properties it’s associated with. We benefit from that attitude. Working with them feels seamless, they send out large teams to help plan and support and as you can see they go big on branding. All that helps us deliver greater value to consumers. They are a dream partner to be honest and we look forward to growing with them.
Your three events last year had amapiano headliners, has that been a conscious choice to put the genre front and centre?
EC: Not as such, we really just try to create lineups that we feel audiences will enjoy. We also have a working group that does research ahead of each event, who is hot, who are people listening to on the radio and in the clubs etc. That is really what informs selections.
Do you feel the Coke food festival format has been well received by the audience?
EC: Absolutely. As I mentioned, people just ‘got it’! You sort of can never go wrong with food as long as it’s really good. We’d tried in the past to add various markets to Unplugged and it didn’t quite work. Now, we have a great curator who selects each vendor and we also work with Coke to create food combos and that’s worked really well.
Can we expect this relationship to continue into the new year?
EC: Certainly. We are already talking about how to grow the event and ameliorate the experience. We have every hope to have a long a fruitful partnership with Coca-Cola. Like I mentioned, they’re a dream partner and we have a long history with the brand. If I am honest, and I’ve said this publicly before, Unplugged struggled before our initial partnership with them. In our first three years we operated in the red, and then a visionary woman at Coke decided to back us and that changed everything. We’ll always be grateful to her and to Coke because it modeled what great collaboration looks like.
Enjoyed reading this news report? Support Greedysouth by buying the team a cup of coffee. Your support assists in the production of such quality reports. Thank you.