Francis Doku: Five things we learned from VGMA

This week being the post Vodafone Ghana Music Awards (VGMA) week, has been pregnant with many issues and I was not very certain on which of them or which angle I should perform a Caesarean Section on.

I have a few issues to talk about as a member of the public who took part in the biggest event on the entertainment calendar in Ghana. It has always been a pleasure to share my opinion about the VGMA here in this column and this year’s won’t be an exception.

So here, ladies and gentlemen, are the five things we learned (from my perspective, of course, needless to say) at the 16th edition of the Ghana Music Awards sponsored by Vodafone:

DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER AND SO ARE LATE STARTS OF VGMA:

It appears that it doesn’t matter how hard they try and how much effort they put in to ensure that the event starts on time, Charterhouse would still fail at it. Sometimes, it is not their doing that the show doesn’t start early as they wait for patrons to come for it to start early.

This time round, the show started almost two hours behind schedule not because they had not been prompt with preparation, but because although they were done and ready to get the show started before 6:30pm, the people for whom the show is organised had not showed up.

Usually, it is the stars and the awards presenters who they have spoken to whose delay in coming to the venue leads to the show not starting on time. It must also be said that, this year’s especially delayed also because getting into the designated parking space at the State House was very terrible.

It took some, yours truly included, about an hour to get a place to park as a result of a wedding that had ended about the same time as the patrons to the VGMA were arriving for the much famed entertainment event.

Enough of the excuse, the point here is that, in the minds of all the people who attend VGMA every year, it is a show that won’t start on time and that was manifested again this year. 

For those who watch from home, it is a show that they won’t see to the end if they are watching GTV; thankfully, a couple more stations like UTV and ETV as well as the live streaming on the Internet were added to the live broadcast thus those who could access them were able to watch to the end. Well, hopefully.

VGMA LASTS LONGER AND LONGER AND LOOOOONGER:

Over the years, the one issue that many have had with the VGMA is that it stretches and drags for far too long. This year’s was no exception as the show that started at almost 10pm went on until after 3am before it would come to an end.

That’s almost six hours of sitting at one place for a show. Look at it this way, if you had board a plane at Heathrow in London just when the show was starting, you’ll be in Accra before it ended. Or let me say you could have done Accra-Lagos-Accra about five times before the show would end.

It is a challenge for many people who think that an awards show should not take that long to end. There will be many reasons to give why it takes so long, including the fact that it is an industry event and you need to give a sizeable number of artistes the opportunity to perform, the time it takes for awards presenters to say a few things before presenting their awards bla bla bla.

The patrons to the VGMA and those who watch from home are exposed to other forms of industry events such as the BET, MAMAs, Oscars and Grammys and they know that despite all the artistry, speeches and everything that happens on stage, none of those shows go beyond four hours.

It therefore can be done if we put our minds to it. One solution could be this, and I am certain I have written about this almost 10 years ago, produce everybody, teleprompt all the people who come on the stage, let them be guided by something and for the love of God, cut down on the number of artistes who perform at the VGMA. 

Yes, a reduction from about 18 to 13 or 14 is still not a cut down. In my arrogant opinion, of course.

There are also too many breaks of uncertainties at some points of the show. The one commodity that was on short supply was a seamless flow of the event from one point to another.

For instance, and this may not be the fault of the producers, why it took Lumba so long to come on stage to perform when he had been mentioned is still a mystery to me.

@TheGHMediaGuru

• To be continued