The country’s leading live event technical and production training organisation, the South African Roadies Association (SARA) last week hosted Africa’s first-ever Live Event Technical & Production Conference (LETPC 2015) at the Sunnyside Park Hotel in Parktown, Johannesburg.
The main purpose of this unique conference, planned to be an annual event, is to gather relevant stakeholders, professionals and practitioners in the events, technical, production and education sectors, along with international market leaders, to discuss the need for a critical upgrade of skills development, sector training and skill interventions. Currently, the sector’s skill qualification is only at matriculation level and urgently needs to increase to at least NQF 5 in order to match international standards.
The conference was supported by the Department of Arts and Culture, the event’s anchor sponsor, and the keynote address was delivered by the Minister of Arts and Culture, Nathi Mthethwa.
SARA president, Freddie Nyathela, expressed the hope of SARA officials that the conference will help:
– Increase skills qualifications to NQF 5
– Job creation
– Raise the level of entrepreneurship
– Equity creation
– Public-private partnerships
– Foreign equipment manufacturer training and investments in SA
– Entry level on-the-job training programme management
– Sector development
These and other industry topics were addressed at the conference by international and local market leaders. Prominent international speakers included:
– John Botham OBE from Semperior LTD (UK)
– Adrian Brooks from Backstage Academy (UK)
– Pauline Tambling CBE from Creative & Cultural Skills (UK)
– Randell Greenlee from VPLT, the German Event Technology Association (Germany)
– Frank Andrewartha from Quest Engineering (Australia)
– Andy Lenthall from Production Services Association UK).
