It is sometimes very easy to be cocky given the success of Africa Night in Tilburg. However, we try as much as possible to resist this temptation. The August edition of our show was the first one after the vacation and this time we were a bit curious as to how many (and which) people were going to show up. Going by past experience, we should know what to expect. The vacation period is unusually always very busy at the Africa Night. However, this time around, we had some reasons to really wonder if Africa Night was going to be as successful as in the previous months. For one, this edition fell one the 4th Saturday of the month instead of the customary and (now legendary!) 3rd Saturday of the month. And even though we had been telling everybody about this one time change, we still knew that many of our guests will still mix up the dates. In the end our worst fears were confirmed by the news that a lot of people showed up the Saturday earlier!
The second point is that because of the status of Africa Night in Tilburg, a lot of people always plan their stuff around our show. That is to say that, even potential competitors are always careful to plan their own shows so that it does not coincide with ours. But this time around, one potentially formidable competitor planned her own Africa themed dance event on exactly the same night. This was done of course because they, like some other people, did not realise that our show was taking place on the same night. This person also had a lot of add-ons that was supposed to entice people to come to her party. We think, having realised at the last moment that their show was going head-to-head with ours, she panicked. This is because she sent her people to spread word around that our show was either cancelled or that we have moved the show to the venue she was using. This was apparently to trick people into thinking that we were the same people behind their own show so that our loyal base will just move over to their venue.
This trick probably cost us a couple of guests or maybe not. In the end we had an even fuller house than in the previous 3 months! This is even more remarkable given the fact that there was a 2nd potentially bigger (annual) Afro-Caribbean themed event going on at the biggest music theatre in the city. Maybe some of our guests also took a peep in those other “kitchens”. Maybe that was why many came even later than they always did. But came they did and they came in droves. And as always, we welcomed a lot of new guests.
It was also one of those nights when the ladies outnumber the gentlemen. This prompted an exasperated remark from a lady who was new at our show. She wondered aloud if the African men were this very shy because this would be the first time she would attend one of these parties and no man would ask her the whole night for a dance! The guys just had a lot of dance partners to choose from that night. And with a disc jockey that seemed bent on raising his game to another level, one could not blame the other ladies for clinging to their men the whole evening.
We do not know how the other parties went. We know how ours went. It was a party to be proud of. But even though, we may sometimes be tempted to be cocky because of the success of our show, we will always resist this temptation. It is not cockiness that made Africa Night great. It is the service and respect we give to our clients that have made our show a unique one. We will continue to serve our clients as best as we can. We don’t need to be cocky. Our loyal client are cocky enough by staying loyal and ignoring all the overtures and false rumours from the other shows.
To all our clients we say one big “Thank you”.
