The Alick Maheso and Sulumani show in the UK has had to be cancelled at the last minute after the musicians failed to get visas on time. C...
The Alick Maheso and Sulumani show in the UK has had to be cancelled at the last minute after the musicians failed to get visas on time.Chanter Seh Calaz and Greatman were also set to perform at the same show. The promoters, Phab Entertainment confirmed in a statement that the show had been cancelled.
"This is due to anomalies in the handling of our visa applications and unprecedented delays in the issuance of the visas by the authorities in Pretoria. As is our usual practice when arranging events, we secured work permits for the artists well in advance and made the necessary arrangements for for visa submissions in Harare. The current Home Office guidelines for Tier 5 visa applications stipulates that all applications and decisions will be processed within fifteen working days.
All our artists submitted their visa applications on Friday the 1st February 2019 at the TLS visa centre Harare which means they should have been issued at least two weeks ago. Our situation has been further compounded by misinformation and lack of communication channels and advice on the part of the authorities. Since the beginning of last week, the TLS visa tracking system was updated to indicate that our visa application process was now completed and passports were being returned to the applicants. From previous experience, it usually takes one to two working day for one to receive their documents from the time the decision is made in Pretoria.
Accordingly, we advised our artists to go and collect their passports as advised and only to be told that the passports had not yet arrived. The artists were however reassured that the passports were on their way and advised to keep checking as there were usually two daily consignments arriving from Pretoria. Since last week the artists have been checking daily and updating us accordingly. We have also sent numerous follow up emails to the authorities querying the delays and misinformation but did not get any acknowledgment until on Wednesday the 26th when to our horror we were informed that the passports were still in Pretoria and had not even been processed as yet.
We were assured that this was being addressed as a matter of urgency and would be resolved within a day or two. The artists were due to fly out of Harare on Thursday and we have had to cancel and amend their flights on two occasions. It is every Promoter's dilemma to decide when is the right time to make this kind of announcement especially when you still have hope that something could still materialise.
There are a lot of resources in terms of your own investment into the the project and also the general public and music fans who would have also invested their own time and resources in planning for such an outing. It is therefore not always easy to make premature pronouncements until all possible avenues have been completely exhausted. As PHAB Entertainment we have come a long way with these events and like any Promoter there will always be days like these along the journey.
On this sad occasion we take heart in the knowledge that we had done everything within our powers to make this tour happen and the interest from the public has been very encouraging. In light of this we have therefore agreed with all the Artists that were coming on this tour that the show will not be cancelled but postponed to a later date to be advised. Another date will be announced in due course and the event will feature the same artists with a possible one more surprise addition to the line up.
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