Changing the name of your festival just a month out from kick-off maybe isn't an ideal marketing strategy. But then naming it after a rival promoter 'aint such a good idea either.
Non Stop Entertainment Pty Ltd have announced they are changing the name of their forthcoming Akon headlined "urban" festival The Jamfest 2010 to Supafest 2010. Reason being embedded squarely in the disclaimer attached to the bottom of Non Stop's press release:
“Supafest 2010” (formerly known as “the Jamfest 2010”) is not affiliated or associated in any way with Jam, Jam Music or Jam Recordings Pty Ltd
Duh.
Akon was of course the target of a silly
video review in Melbourne's The Age broadsheet last October, gleefully titled 'Smack Down: Rapper Akon's Concert Cancelled'. That article, which referenced Akon walking into the crowd at his show to tell everyone to settle down, but focused on hyperventilating statements from the parents of minors and other bastions of decorum whose muppets saw some fist-fights, gave us the perfect pulpit from which to
reflect on The Age's routine scandalising of such situations. Which, one could argue, fed directly into the kind of liquor licensing crackdowns we're currently rallying against. Go, balanced reporting.
Nonetheless, Akon will apparently appear this April as part of Supafest 2010, alongside artists such as Kelly Rowland (pictured), Pitbull, Jay Sean, Sean Paul and Eve. The event is "scheduled" to tour across Australia from April 13-18.