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The football fraternity and the people of Lomé, capital of Togo, West Africa, won’t forget the night of Friday 1st of February 2008.
The glittering and glamorous GLO CAF (Confederation of African Football) Awards was the occasion and winners in 11 categories were awarded trophies. Togolese Prime Minister Komlam Mally attended the event, as did the who’s who of African Football. The President of CAF, Issa Hayatou, was there and so were many CAF representatives, and Africa’s top footballers. This year marks the 50th anniversary of CAF and saw the top 10 African footballers of the last 50 years being awarded trophies.
Johannesburg-based True Colour Events won the contract to produce and manage the event. The crew, excluding performers, comprised some 64 professionals, from lighting designers to cameramen, show producers, event co-ordinators, sound designers, show director, decorators, riggers and technicians.
Such was the scale of this event that a DC-10 had to be chartered from South Africa to airlift about 60 tons of equipment to the venue.
And we mean “equipment!” Everything had to be taken along – from sound, lighting, staging and electrical equipment, to tables, chairs, ashtrays, bowls, carpets, tablecloths, draping and even five whole lounge suites to Lome, Togo!
We soon discovered that West Africa is probably 95% French, with very few people able to speak English! We learnt some basic French pretty quickly. The challenges of working in Africa, then really became apparent, as the plane landed at the wrong destination. After some frantic calls and a whole week’s delay, the cargo arrived in Lome. Seven days of lost time meant that everyone dived in and started helping, no matter what their job description!
Décor company WOW Factor turned a démodé-looking entrance and auditorium into a glitzy, trendy entertainment venue fit for a president! The transformation turned the auditorium into a “GLO” universe, with all the elements from green seat covers to flag banners to advertising banners hung on pillars. The front of house too, had GLO’s branding alternating with black drapes, flanking the stage on both sides.
True Technical took just two days to transform the stage into an astounding new backdrop for the performance to come. The set was erected and the floor painted a pale grey and then spattered with black and white speckles, transforming a rather dilapidated old venue into something shiny, bright and new. As all this was going on, the show director and choreographer were honing and fine-tuning the dance routines for the big night. On the technical front, the lighting designer (and the sound designer and video playback operator), too spent hours planning, programming and plotting for the performance.
Four cameramen placed in strategic positions, ensured that the world got to see what happened at the GLO CAF Awards for 2007. The feed was taken live by at least four African countries and was fed to SuperSport in South Africa as well.
Accompanied by local and international dance troupes, performers included the likes of King Mensah, South Africa’s Vicky Sampson and 3 Tons of Fun, and Togolese local, King Sunny Ade.
The MC’s for the night were Michelle Attoh from Ghana and Christopher Bongo from Congo.
In order to prevent blackouts during the show (the power had already proven to be unstable) first one and then a second generator was acquired to ensure a flawless event.
Video clips played on the big screens announced the nominees in the various categories to the delighted audience, who whooped, whistled and wowed as each player or coach was announced. The crowd was also thrilled to see many of their heroes playing in a ‘football music video’, and loudly showed their appreciation as they saw goal after goal being scored by the likes of Didier Drogba, Michael Essien and Emmanuel Adebayor, who hails from Togo.
CAF honoured women’s football by awarding Cynthia Uwak of Nigeria the prize for Woman’s Footballer of the Year 2007. The coveted African Footballer of the Year Award deservedly went to Mali & Seville striker Frédéric Kanouté.
South African Vicky Sampson led the finale and supported by all the other artistes performed a special song written for Glo around their slogan Rule Your World. The English version was translated into French for this year’s event and all guests were given a copy of this as a reminder of this awesome event, which local media hailed as a major success.
