WordHasIt: Raining On The Budget
Yakande from Guinea at the Rainforest Music Festival.
THE 11th Rainforest World Music Festival experienced another remarkable showing. This year, the recently-concluded festival attracted 25,000 people from 36 countries including the United States, Britain, Africa, the Middle East, Singapore, Indonesia, China and Europe.
But there was a dampener.
According to a report last week, the festival organiser had “suffered” after the Tourism Ministry has reduced the funding to RM70,000 from the RM500,000 last year.
Citing the budget as “pittance”, the festival co-chairman and Sarawak Tourism Board Chief Executive Officer, Gracie Geikie, felt that the Ministry should have supported the event more to enhance its draw as a tourism magnet.
She said the organiser spent RM1.9 million to organise the event. Last year, it was RM1.6 million.
Geikie also expressed her disappointment over the “unfairness” of another festival (that recently took place in the peninsula) having received RM1.65 million this year.
Last year, a total of RM1.7 million was allocated to the Penang World Music Festival.
Apparently, the shortfall in funding had taken its toll on the advertising campaign for the World Crafts Bazaar, a fringe festival which was introduced this year for the RWMF.
Perhaps not many know the tale of the RWMF. From its humble beginnings, which saw less than 100 visitors attending the festival in 1998, the annual event has grown by leaps and bounds.
The festival is also getting tremendous support from media members from all over the world. This year, 388 electronic and print media were flown in to the city to cover the festival.
The festival took place at the Sarawak Cultural Village in Kuching. The lush virgin forest located at the foot of the mystical Mount Santubong made for a perfect setting to witness a stellar line-up of world-class music outfits, most of whom were in Malaysia for the first time.
From the sizzling Sheldon Blackman & The Love Circle of Trinidad & Tobago to the thundering Kasai Masai from Congo, world music enthusiasts ignored cloudbursts to soak in the great indigenous music.
The artistes were the Eastern musical instruments band Adel Salameh from Palestine, Japanese drum master Hiroshi Motofuji, Sarawak’s Kan’id and the contemporary-infused AkashA from Kuala Lumpur.
Rollicking folk, folk rock, jazz, reggae … almost every genre of music you could find was heard.
RWMF lived up to its name of being an open-air festival. When the rain poured down in torrents for hours on the opening and closing night, the crowd didn’t budge.
Interestingly, the event also attracted the country’s VVIPs and business magnates.
Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and his wife Datin Seri Jeanne Abdullah took time off from their hectic schedule to attend the event on Friday.
They were accompanied by Sarawak Chief Minister Tan Sri Abdul Taib Mahmud who came with his son, Deputy Minister of Tourism Datuk Seri Sulaiman Abdul Rahman Abdul Taib.
This year’s festival also attracted a slew of celebrities including Cheryl Samad, Arianna Teoh, husband Alex Yoong and Jehan Miskin.
Next year, the festival will be held from July 10-12. Hey, if you wish to attend it make your bookings now!
* ntv7 CELEBRATED its 10th anniversary on July 7 and the station has embarked on an aggressive campaign to commemorate the event.
In keeping with its “feel-good” tradition, the station is poised to bring back the old spirit of the channel. We heard that some of the station’s established names are making a comeback.
To date, a few names have cropped up including that of news presenters Wan Kamaruddin Wan Ibrahim and Datin NorAzlina Awang Had.
The former was once synonymous with the station’s Edisi Siasat while the latter has emerged as one of the most vibrant and exuberant young presenters in early 2000.
New Straits Times