Many have said the 19th edition of the National Arts Merit Awards (NAMA) which was held a few days ago was one of the best ever.

However, what they do not know is that had it not been for a number of sponsors coming on board timeously, the narrative would have been very different.

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Having started searching for corporate sponsorship as early as September 2019, after getting a five-year contract to run the NAMA’s in June of the same year, Napoleon Nyanhi was in a fix when he hit December 31 without any sponsors to partner with him.

He and his team from Jacaranda Culture and Media Corporation (JCMC) had promised NACZ fireworks and a month to go to February, the month of the event, nobody was cashing in.

“…at this point all I can say is faith is stubborn. We had to keep believing,” said Nyanhi, the NAMA executive director during an interview on EarGround.

“There was no way we could fail to deliver as the event had been held consistently every year despite the odds. Worse more, we were new onboard and had promised the NACZ that we could run the show and add some exciting new elements.”

Fortunately, in January things started to fall in place.

“The first sponsor that came on board was Nyaradzo Group through its Sahwira Events. After them, we then managed to get Greygate who took care of the red carpet branding.”

But, for the event to be memorable, there had to be some performances and this called for hiring artists.

“We started to engage performers we wanted to work within October 2019.  Most of them agreed to be part of the event but what was left was paying them.

“Sadly, we did not have funding. So the hunt for cash began,” he narrated.

In the midst of the search, 4 May happened.

“4 May came through for us in a big way. Seeing that the funds were not adding up to pay all the acts, the clothing shop came in and said they would dress all our performers, hosts and some of the award presenters on the night.

“They ended up dressing more than 30 people from head to toe and all were asked to keep everything they had been given” he revealed.

This meant that these individuals were all donning plus US$400 suits and US$100 shoes on the night.

Continued Nyanhi: “The 4 May deal made life easy for us as the artists got to a point where they acknowledged that though we did not have money, we had tried. This meant that the cash bill for each artist dropped significantly and hence we managed to put on the show we staged on the night of the event.

“Some of the artists who were dressed included Macheso and his entire band as well as Freeman and his management. We also had Leroy Gopal, the host being dressed too.

However, the battle was not yet over for Nyanhi.

Though he had secured a technical partner, Events Evolution who charged next to nothing for the stage, sound and lights, there was still an issue of the venue.

“We almost changed the dates as we were struggling to raise funds to pay for the Harare International Conference Centre.

“We tried to search for other alternatives but we still had no money to pay for them.

“Fortunately, Old Mutual came through for us and covered the venue costs and from there it was a roll,” he shared.

Listen to the full interview here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/190_REAbCaPhwHwDoLDxUuzrJruFRzZ0i/view