Fusion Boutique Hotel lights up for live entertainment
Sterling Productions lit up the Fusion Boutique Hotel yesterday in support of the #LightSAred movement.
POLOKWANE – Fusion Boutique Hotel was lit red on Wednesday, 5 August to highlight the plight of the live entertainment industry. The industry has been shut down for five months and South Africans were asked to take part in the #LightSAred movement and simultaneously light up their homes and buildings in red to draw attention to this fight for survival.
According to LightSAred, the sector will not survive another 100 days of the lockdown. “The aim of the national movement was to get the attention of the government and to engage with them regarding an itinerary to keep the industry alive. Members currently have no way to make a living and the companies that hire them are going out of business. This has affected many people and companies from artists to freelancers, theatres and venues, equipment suppliers and various other trades within. The #LightSAred movement is our cry for help.”
Sterling Productions, a local production company joined the movement and through the use of overhead projectors, lit up the outside walls of Fusion Boutique Hotel in red from 18:00 to 20:00.
https://www.facebook.com/sterlingproductions.za/videos/652108285406397/
Owner and founder of Sterling Productions, Melanie de Bruyn told Review that their participation in the #LightSARed campaign did not involve them, but the event industry as a whole.
“The movement is not only about our company but every single person and business in the event’s sector which have been affected by the lockdown. The small contribution we are making by lighting up this building in Polokwane is our act of solidarity towards this initiative,” Melanie said.
“Professionals within the sector will stand together in an effort to be seen and not forgotten by government and our communities. This is a campaign to gain the attention of government. The colour red is the international colour for emergencies and that’s the state in which the entertainment industry is in at the moment,” she explained.
Melanie explained that the impact of the lockdown started to be felt in early March after the government implemented a range of measures to mitigate the risks posed by Covid-19 in the country. “Companies in the events sector saw the first in a slew of event cancellations and before we knew it, all schools were closed and gatherings greater than 50 people were banned,” she said.
She adds that at that moment, every stakeholder in the events and theatre industry were forced to come to terms with the reality that the event industry would be the first to feel the impact, and would likely be the last to recover from the economic tsunami set off by the ‘Covid-19 quake.’
“We refuse to be the forgotten industry. For decades, our industry has brought smiles to a lot of faces. We’ve provided entertainment with theatre productions, political rallies, sports events, festivals and so much more to South Africa. We are usually behind the scenes but we are now standing up to #LightSAred and make our voice heard,” she said.
This is our cry for help to the government to reopen the sector, she concluded.
