Mantse Aryeequaye, founder of the well-known street art festival Chalewote has revealed that the festival in question has been independently funded.
The organizer of the festival which has been hosted at Jamestown in Accra for twelve years disclosed that the street carnival has been independently funded up until 2018 when the Ministry of Tourism involved itself.
“We funded it independently. The only time we got sponsorship was in 2018 from the Ministry of Tourism. The only sponsorship was from the government. We’ve had partnerships but one of the problems we have are corporations that wouldn’t fund the festival but then would take advantage and ambush it. Chalewote has largely been independently funded,” he revealed.
When asked if these organizations out there are not interested in investing in the cause, Mantse Aryeequaye who founded Chalewote, a festival which has its 13th edition being held at the Black Star Square in Osu, Accra said that “They want the numbers but don’t want to pay for it. They feel like you can take your proposal elsewhere.”
The Director of Operations of Chalewote, Nii Aryeh supported the opinion given by Mantse saying that indeed, Chalewote has already established some level of brand equity but the organizations that can sponsor the festival do not have creative marketing departments that sell the idea to them.
He added that “The brand equity is there but there is a challenge. What I’ve realized is that the people who run the marketing departments for these corporations have a one way of marketing their organization. They are not able to convince their board to go out there and engage. Everytime you deal with them, you have to literally show them how to market their company. I say this because they see a big festival they want to be part of but they cannot creatively think of how to engage the festival or make themselves welcoming to people who are attending the festival. They don’t see why they should pay a good amount to be part of the festival.”
The 13th edition of Chalewote is going to be held at the Black Star Square in Osu, Accra from Monday, August 21, 2023 to Sunday, August 27, 2023.
This year’s edition seeks to celebrate over a decade of offering some of the most iconic public art interventions by African artists, as well as co-creations with collaborators from across the world.
By Esther Aryee|3Xtra.tv|Ghana
