Cape Town shortlisted for the Loeries host venue
15. Sep, 2008
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Cape Town – After reviewing a long list of possible towns, Cape Town has been shortlisted as one of four venues to play host to The Loerie Awards in 2009. Cape Town will be competing with Margate, Sun City and Johannesburg for the honour of hosting this spectacular event.
“We’ve held the Loeries in Margate for four years,” says Festus Masekwameng, Chairman of The Loerie Awards. “It’s certainly a strong contender in the process, but the committee has received a lot of feedback from the industry as well as interest from other cities. We wanted an opportunity to evaluate a short list of venue options.”
A team from Cape Town under the coordination of Cape Town Tourism is hard at work on Cape Town’s Bid for The Loeries.
A highlight on the country’s design industry’s calendar, the aim of the awards is to honour and celebrate the year’s best work in a creative and inspirational environment. In the last four years, the awards weekend has run from Friday until Monday in Margate, KwaZulu-Natal, and included the two awards ceremonies. The ceremonies over the last years have been created in the mould of the MTV or Oscar Awards and attended by all communication specialists: including advertising agencies, designers, architects and marketers. The last awards were attended by more than 3 100 people – a recognition of The Loeries stature.
Responding with enthusiasm about the opportunity, Mariette du Toit-Helmbold, CEO of Cape Town Tourism says: “Cape Town is the perfect venue for The Loeries. Cape Town has a well-established creative industry, a world-class tourism infrastructure and the lifestyle offering to position the Mother City as the creative mecca of South Africa. Hosting strategic events is an important part of our destination marketing strategy – a powerful platform to promote Cape Town, counter-act seasonality and create sustainable economic growth opportunities,” she added.
The role of The Loerie Awards is to recognise, reward and foster creative excellence. One aspect of this is to drive educational initiatives which increase awareness of the career and study opportunities available in the communications industry. In 2008, The Loerie Awards launched the ‘Seeking Creative Excellence’ scholarship and has several other educational initiatives in place.
The bid to host the Loeries in Cape Town is fully supported by the City of Cape Town. “The Loeries offers great opportunities for economic development for Cape Town. Not only can we attach social development initiatives onto the event, we also recognise the event’s commitment to developing students in the communications and creative industry,” says Simon Grindrod, Mayoral Committee for Social, Economical Development and Tourism. “The Loeries is also the perfect platform to firmly establish Cape Town as South Africa’s Party Capital in the run up to the 2010 FIFA World Cup.”
The site earmarked for the main event is the East City Precinct with the Good Hope Centre as the central focal point.
Andrew Boraine, CEO of the Cape Town Partnership, commented on the significance of hosting the Loeries in Cape Town: “The Loeries is a huge opportunity for Cape Town. It will add to the regeneration of the East City, which is currently a site of significant creative industries clustering and a major part of the city’s cultural hub. By attracting such a major event into the East CIty, our city can fast-track the redevelopment of the Good Hope Centre, and mobilise our creative community to engage with the Loerie’s extensive programme of activities.”
“The opportunities linked to hosting The Loeries are endless,” says Grindrod. “Not only will it attract an estimated 5 000 visitors to our City, but it will create a platform for Capetonians to celebrate their City with the creative industry at large.”
The Loeries include a host of fringe activities like a media centre, VIP lounges set up across the host town, Saturday and Sunday after-parties including a line-up of SA’s finest DJ’s, the Battle of the Bands, beach activities, numerous agency parties, non-stop advertising show reels in cinemas and pre and post tours of the area.
“The economic and marketing benefits associated with hosting niche events like The Loeries are endless. We are able to attract a niche market, package our destination in such a way that visitors are encouraged to explore it beyond the obvious attractions and real opportunities for small to medium businesses can be created through dedicated event services like transport, catering, entertainment, technical support and cleaning,” concludes du Toit-Helmbold.
The Loerie Awards is the only award endorsed by the Association for Communication and Advertising (ACA), the Creative Circle (CC), the South African Graphic Design Council (Think), the Commercial Producers Association (CPA), the Digital Forum, and the Communication & Advertising Forum for Empowerment (Café).
The tender deadline is the last week of September, after which the Loeries Committee will review the pitches. A final decision will be made in October this year.
Cape Town is leading the pack on the Bizcommunity voting page, so join in and cast your vote on www.bizcommunity.com if you think the Loeries should come home to nest in the Mother City!
My name is Muzi Mohale a full-time travel blogger, your host at Travelwires.com responsible for all editorial on this blog. I blog about the travel and tourism industry in Africa. Apart from blogging about tourism, I also run 
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