The awards which were scheduled to take place on 16 June at the ICC Durban have been postponed to 11 August. The organisers say this is due to the soccer world cup that will take place around this period. “Due to the upcoming Fifa World Cup in June/July, an executive decision was made by the Directors, to postpone the Royalty Soapie Awards. This decision was reached to allow the South African audience to engage in the excitement and euphoria of this spectacular worldwide event,” read a statement.
GETTING PEOPLE ONBOARD
In an earlier interview with Move! the brains behind the event, Winnie Ntshaba said getting things in order was no walk in the park. However, they were determined to make things work. She was quick to point out the reason for the awards’ sudden two-year disappearance. “Getting people to buy into them was the challenge,” she explains, adding “Most of our funders are government; we were affected by things such fees must fall. They felt they could not fund a one-night event when they’re faced with a crisis in the education sector. That to me made sense because I understood where they were coming from.”
MAKING AWARDS MEANGFUL
The awards which were launched in 2015 were not taking place after the inaugural ceremony that year. Winnie attributes this to the skepticism of people about the idea of honouring people in the soapie genre of television. “We‘re excited to be back. There were things we were doing. We were busy with the foundation. We wanted to make the awards more meaningful,” she cheerfully said. “We want to celebrate people in the industry so that they can be motivated to write more compelling stories. Everyone will go to work motivated, knowing even if they don’t win in another awards show they still stand a chance in another,” she said.
