The organisers of Kasi Vibe Festival Namibia and the owner of TouchLight Audio and Stage, a company that offers stage sound, lighting and event management services in the country, recently teamed up to stage an event dubbed #DriveThruCinema at Lafrenz parking lot at 80 Rensburger Street, to cater to the entertainment sector that has been hugely affected by the novel coronavirus.
Benjamin Kaume Ketu, the owner of TouchLight Audio and Stage, said Namibians are generally people who like going out, having outdoor experiences and doing various activities that have to do with entertainment.
The entire team thought about and explored ways to address this without contravening any state of emergency rules and regulations.
He said: “We thought of coming up with the idea of having people entertained without them moving in and out of their cars; we did some consultations and approached law enforcement and they reverted to us that by organising something like this, no laws will be broken.”
Strict measures were undertaken and will continue to ensure that no alcohol is consumed at the premises, and every person in the car will be sanitized, temperatures will be taken and only a maximum of three people are allowed in a vehicle.
Ketu said they thought that watching movies in the car on a big screen would be something people would want to do without exposing themselves to the virus.
“We decided to go classical last weekend with movies such as Wolf of Wall Street, Gladiator and Pursuit of Happiness, These are some of the best classical movies which have pretty much been released in the last decade, so we thought that’s what people are going to relate to and enjoy, ” he explained.
Ketu said they are not trying to go for new movies as Ster Kinekor is there for that and because that is the market for actual cinemas, they rather want to do things from the golden age. “We want to create the platform and urge people to come out and re-create memories they have lost. We are giving opportunities for movie enthusiasts to watch flicks they have not seen in a long time,” he expanded.
“Every weekend, old movie enthusiasts will definitely be seeing us doing this event and welcome suggestions of movies people are interested in watching and hopefully with that, we will be able to positively respond to the audience on what they are interested in. We will also try to accommodate kiddies movies for family nights to make sure everyone is catered for and no one misses anything,” said Ketu.
Ketu said the response was great over the weekend to the movies showed. “We initially planned on getting 100 cars per day over the weekend but ended with around 40 cars and I think that for the first time it’s pretty good. People who attended gave positive reviews saying they want to come back,” he pointed out.
He said that with festivals, cinemas, restaurants, lounges and clubs having been shut, this has largely affected the entertainment sector especially with the strict rules of social distancing to curb the spread of coronavirus.
The team is contemplating on rolling the drive-through cinema to the rest of Windhoek, seeing that people are still not allowed to freely move in masses.
– psiririka@nepc.com.na