Really? Ghana Music Awards Europe organizers blame flop on 'outragous demands' of Sarkodie, Kojo Antwi and Efya

So its safe to say that the 2013 Ghana Music Awards Europe that took place on Friday 9^th August at the IndigO2 was a major flop. I made the really bad decision of attending the event, thinking I was in for a great night – how wrong was I! I must say that I had misgivings about going. I mean, Ghanaian events in the UK don’t exactly have a great track record when it comes to being organised. However a friend told me last year GMA Europe was quite good, and looking at the artist line up this year (Sarkodie, Kojo Antwi, Fuse ODG, Pat Thomas, Atumpan and others), I thought I might as well give it a shot. I got to the venue just after midnight and to me the turnout was quite disappointing. After this event being billed as the biggest night in Ghanaian music in Europe, I expected to find a packed venue. But the VIP area had plenty of empty seats, and the standing section was barely filled. This did not bode well , and the night progressively got worse from there. I had expected to find the show under way when I got there, but the host for the night DJ Abrantee didn’t come on stage until almost 1am. And the show was supposed to have started at 9pm…I must say co-host Nana Ama McBrown was a pleasant surprise – her rendition of R2Bees hit ‘Walahi’ showed that not only was she a talented actress but she can hold her own on the mike as well! But she only came on for about 5 mins at the start of the show and the was it – I didn’t see her on stage again. The event finally got under way and when it was time to give out the awards, guess what? The winners were not even there to collect them. Which is understandable – I mean not everyone nominated could fly here for the event right? However none of the artists based in Ghana nominated were present, a fact that was not well received by the crowd, who subsequently booed every time it was announced that the winner unfortunately couldn’t make it. The only thing that could have saved the night was the performances from Sarkodie, Kojo Antwi and Pat Thomas. Not to say that the other UK based Ghanaian artists weren’t good. I regularly see Fuse ODG, Mista Silva, Skob, Kwamz, Flava, Gizmo and Sonni Balli at Ghanaian events all the time, the most recent being Ghana Party in the Park just last week, so I wasn’t really looking forward to their performances as much I was to Sarkodie, Kojo Antwi and Pat Thomas (and I’m sure I wasn’t alone on this). But surprise surprise they were a no show. No explanation was given as to their absence – I later learned that Kojo Antwi had turned up too late to the venue so security did not allow him in. By now it was around 3am and I had had enough. Even though the event was still going on I left feeling like the event organisers had cheated myself and others who attended out of our money. The main artists that were supposed to perform didn’t turn up, the show started late and dragged on for way too long and the overall organisation of the night was extremely poor. However the evening wasn’t all bad – I did enjoy Charsay‘s , Fuse’s and Mista Silva’s performances. But based on what transpired on Friday night will I go to next year’s GMA Europe? Right now the answer is a resounding no.