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Bongani Ndlovu, Showbiz Correspondent
Roil Bulawayo Arts Awards (RoilBAA) organisers have set 28 August as the date for the annual awards presentation.

The organisers probably hope that by then the situation would have improved or they will have found a way of holding the event while not flouting the lockdown regulations.

The RoilBAA spokesperson Nkululeko Nkala said as organisers they resolved that despite the Covid-19 pandemic, the awards event must be held.

“We sat as the Roil Bulawayo Arts board and we decided that the arts must go on. There is no telling when the pandemic will end and what is clear is that it wont end anytime soon. We need to hold the awards again this year and we settled for 28 August,” said Nkala.

He said although the lockdown is on, there are artistes who have been hard at work.

“We know that artistes have been working, although not in the usual environment that they are used to.

Our hope is that by August maybe regulations will be relaxed to allow us to hold the event,” said Nkala.

He said their plan was to have a hybrid type of awards ceremony.

“Our desire is that the awards have a live audience but this will depend on the measures in place then. In the event the regulations are not relaxed, we might have a hybrid event that’ll have part live audience and part virtual. There is also a possibility of going full on virtual but what is definite is that the awards will be held this year,” said Nkala.

Last year the event had to be postponed following the outbreak of the pandemic which forced Government to enforce lockdown which among other regulations, banned public gatherings.

The awards ended up being held in November through a hybrid system, where a limited number of people were allowed to attend at the Large City Hall while the rest watched online at home.

The RoilBAAs started in 2017 to celebrate arts excellence in Bulawayo.