Lack of sponsorship tops the list of difficulties faced by event planners, and Baba Sadiq, also known as Abdullai Abu Sadiq, the founder of the 3Music Awards, attributes this to FDA laws.
Due to laws that make it impossible for some businesses to finance events, some potentially excellent efforts have fallen victim to mediocrity, while other events have all but disappeared into obscurity.
Baba Sadiq provided additional clarification when he sat down with Graphic Showbiz during the recent inauguration of the inaugural Guinness Accravaganza event in Accra, explaining that FDA directives forbade the use of celebrities in the promotion of some products, like as alcoholic beverages and cigarettes.
According to him, it is difficult for corporations that were significant event sponsors in the past to join in now that celebrities are not allowed to advertise alcoholic beverages, cigarettes, or other products via any channel.
“This means that you cannot do a billboard with a celeb endorsing an alcoholic beverage for an event”.
“The issue is, the FDA is always coming out with different regulations and to play it safe, potential sponsors will not get involved with events to later face any problems with the FDA,” he said.
According to Baba Sadiq, there need to be a mechanism for events to avoid struggling as a result of such FDA requirements.
“I understand the decision by FDA not to get minors influenced by celebrities who endorse such products but something can be done about it because events are folding up because of lack of sponsorship.”
“Sponsorship plays a major role in this show business so there should be a way out because the industry is really suffering,” he stated.
Meanwhile, a few years ago, the FDA’s head of the industry support services division, Mr. Kofi Essel, told Graphic Showbiz that the agency had prohibited alcoholic beverage firms from sponsoring certain events because of some concerning incidents that had occurred at particular gatherings.
“Just take a look at what happened at the concert at Baba Yara Stadium in Kumasi some years ago, where a lot of revellers in their teens got so drunk and couldn’t do anything than to sleep on the ground. We just want to prevent such things from happening,” Mr Essel said.
Moving forward, the FDA is requesting that any organization or person looking to secure sponsorship from alcoholic beverage corporations for their events send them a letter first.
“The FDA will assess whether it is okay or not for alcoholic beverage companies to sponsor when they are in the know of such events. Without that we will process any individual or company for court if an alcoholic beverage company sponsors an event involving minors,” he revealed.
SOURCE: Senali News Ghana
