Steve Hofmeyr, alongside many other local artists, will be touring Australia and New Zealand with the ‘Afrikaans is Lekker’ tour later this month.
But the tour is making headlines because the Wellington‚ New Zealand show was cancelled amidst protests from international expat group, African-European Indaba.
African-European Indaba founder Johan de Villiers told JacarandaFM that what Hofmeyr represents is not what the majority of Afrikaans people in South Africa represent. De Villiers said action by angered individuals has not only been aimed at Hofmeyr, but also organisations like AfriForum.
But Hofmeyr has rebutted the reports, calling it ‘fake news’ in true Trumpian style. Speaking to TshisaLIVE, Hofmeyr said the tour would go “full steam ahead…
“There is no protest against my performances Down Under. There never has been. The shows are sold out. The protest is from one person… it’s their version of freedom of opinion. It doesn’t affect my concerts,” he said.
The event’s organiser, South African Events, claimed it had only received one concern about Steve performing in the five-city tour.
“Steve will be performing in all the shows (of the tour). We have received only one concern in regards to the event in Auckland, New Zealand. This was forwarded to SA Events and we answered the person. We did not receive any feedback on this from the person,” organiser Arno Nel said.
He confirmed the organiser cancelled a show in Wellington, but denied it was over protests. Instead, he claimed the price of venues and lack of expats in the area were the main factors in the decision.
But the SA version of the Huffington Post says the concert was in fact cancelled “following pressure from South African expats angered at his (Hofmeyr’s) inclusion.
“Email correspondence seen by HuffPost SA shows the Wellington, New Zealand, leg of the Afrikaans Is Lekker 2017 concert tour scheduled for September 22 was cancelled. This was after ‘SA expats and ourselves forwarded information on this racially provocative right-wing singer to [the venue]’, founder of the African-European Indaba, De Villiers, told HuffPost SA.”
