It was with great anticipation, if not a little excitement, that I was looking forward to attending the Channel O Spirit of Africa Awards lastnight at Jo'burg City Hall. I was an invited VIP and was quite eager to enjoy the show from my prestigious vantage point, whilst the other minions had to stand and cheer about it. I should have know from the state of the VIP queue, which was beset from all sides by psuedo celebs and Big Brother Africa rejects, what to expect when I finally made it inside. So after what felt like an age, my partner and I made it inside the venue, which was already heaving with media and various guests. We naturally went to find our seats, only to find the minute auditorium already packed with seated guest. I found a greying man in a CAP Events shirt and asked him where one should sit, considering the amount of people aready in their places. He informed me, quite haughtily in fact, that the seating was reserved for their 300 invited guests. So it was with great relish that I extended my arm and flashed my shiny blue bracelet. Upon seeing this, he planted his hand on his hip and told me that it was a fire hazard to put more seating in. My thoughts were, no sh*t, considering there were about 300 people behind me who wanted to know the very same thing I was enquiring about. I politely told him that I understood all of what he was telling me, but what I wanted to know was, "where does one sit?". He then did that whole girl from the hood thing where yout talk out of your neck and said "well the show is only 1.5 hours long" and flounced off, leaving me agog. After consulting with my friends and other by now thoroughly pissed off guests, we decided to go wait it out in the bar, because there were no AV screens set up for us to watch outside the auditorium. Naturally when we arrived at the Amarula bar, we were told it was closed for the duration of the event, great. After about another 30 minutes of dithering about in the crush myself and about 50 other people decided that it would be much easier to just go home and watch the show there. How on earth do people who apparently host Miss World and Miss South Africa fail to put togethor a poxy awards show??? Surely if you invited only 300 VIPS, you wouldn't issue 500 armbands. It floored me that CAP Events allowed what should have been a great evening out, to turn into a veritable bun fight, with security getting physical with guests and nominees alike. I know how much work the Channel O team put into this event and it was all brought to its knees by an event company who quite frankly, couldn't organise a lay in a whorehouse. Shame on you and shame on your staff for not being able to pull off a simple event and waisting our time when we could have been home watching Brothers & Sisters.
