Half of December shows by A-list artistes are free- Ruddy Kwakye

Ghanaian media executive and culture curator, Ruddy Kwakye, has disclosed that many Ghanaian events don’t make gains because they give out too many free tickets.

Speaking on Joy FM’s Showbiz A-Z, Rudy explained that a number of Ghanaian event organisers usually give out the tickets for free to fill the venues.

“You charge 100,000 cedis to do a show in Ghana, but the reality is you can’t sell 100,000 dollars of tickets. Half of your December shows by your favourite artistes were all free.

They just gave tickets to people to fill them up. It’s an ego trip. Because there is a system; you market in a certain way, you would get your money back, but there is no shortcut around it, thinking we sold the tickets, therefore [we should make a profit],” he said.

He made this statement while discussing why a lot of event organisers usually complain they made losses from their events after announcing they sold out their venues.

For playwright Latif Abubakar, making a profit from events goes beyond just ticket sales. He said on the show that there are other avenues of raising funds to complement ticket sales.

“I always say tickets are insignificant to the cost of a production. Because the amount of money we charge when it comes to ticketing is very small. You can’t depend on tickets to produce your events.

There are other elements of raising funds for production. We talk about sponsorships, partners, investors, and then you create other portfolios,” he said.

Latif noted that he creates a portfolio of exhibitions where companies exhibit their wares and pay him.

For most event organisers, taxes taken by the Ghana Revenue Authority put a lot of pressure on their enterprises.