The Sunday Mail
Takudzwa Chihambakwe
IT has been two years since the demise of Zimbabwe’s arts hub – The Book Café.
Since then, there has not been any promoter or arts organisation that has managed to cover the gap it left, especially in terms of nurturing young talent.
However, the brand did not die instantly. A number of events called Pop-Ups under the banner of The Book Café were held throughout the city until they stopped. Now, the big question is: Will The Book Café ever return?
To get an understanding of what is on the ground, The Sunday Mail Society spoke to brand owner of The Book Café, Tomas Brickhill (pictured), who revealed in an emotionally charged interview how he not only tried to keep the venue’s doors open, but has been trying to bring it back to life.
Began Brickhill’s narration: “To understand where we are now people first need to appreciate what got us to shut down the business in the first place.”
Failed business model
“The business model that the café had been using had become unviable. The café was not an entirely commercial entity and this was because we were so focused on developing the arts sector at all costs.
“So, for instance, whenever we had a show, artistes would always collect gate takings and we would focus on whatever came through the bar. This worked well when the economy was doing well,” said Brickhill.
He said at times they provided free rehearsal space for the artistes as well as instruments.
“For every show we would go out of our way to market the gig on behalf of the artistes because we knew just how difficult things were, especially for the upcoming acts. So we would incur costs for posters and adverts in different newspapers. But as the economic situation in the country worsened, we could not sustain this anymore.”
To drive his point home, he gave the example of Victor Kunonga’s shows at the venue between 2010 and 2013.
“In 2010, Victor Kunonga would fill up the space and the beer sales would be around US$1 500 on the night. Fast forward to 2013, still Victor playing, the auditorium is packed but the spending power of the audience has dropped to less than US$500. I realised that my business model was no longer viable,” explained Brickhill.
Brickhill tried to adjust but all his efforts were in vain.
“In response to the low sales from the bar and high operational costs, we tried several things to keep the ship from sinking. We decided to up the beer prices but this did not help as already the spending power of people had dropped and this move backfired. People smuggled beer into the café or they left the venue to go to their cars and drink alcohol in cooler boxes then return to watch an act.
“Our next move was to introduce the big towers and beer on the pump but the profit margins on these was very minimal and not significant enough to boost the business. So we were doomed,” he narrated.
Brickhill even tried to approach the donor community but this did not help as most of the organisations had cut off funding. They also tried a crowd funding campaign but this yielded nothing.
Flogging a dead horse
Faced with calamity, Brickhill kept digging for answers, but when he looked at the business accounts for the period 2013-2014, he realised he was flogging a dead horse.
“I looked at the 2013-14 trading figures and realised that the income of the business had dropped, in fact, we had made a loss of over US$100 000.
“After carefully analysing the operational dynamics in early 2015, I came to the conclusion that things had been tough for a long time and they were only getting tougher as we went on. So I had to make a decision as the head of the organisation, and we had to close shop in June 2015.”
Brickhill revealed that it was not an easy decision to close shop.
“I did not take the decision to shut down lightly – from a purely legacy perspective, I wanted to continue with the work my father had started, to continue inspiring artistes and grooming future stars. On a more personal level, this was the major connection I had with my father,” said a teary-eyed Brickhill.
“He had recently passed away, I went back to work much sooner than expected to fight for his vision, though I was still grieving. I was so hurt by the shutdown that after telling my staff the news, I went home and cried,” he narrated.
Abandoning the dream
After the closure as highlighted earlier, The Book Café brand began to host several pop-up events in the capital.
“The pop-up events were meant to keep the name of the café relevant – still recognising fine artistes we have and also exposing new acts to music lovers.
“To date we have hosted 28 pop-up shows, one was a flop due to bad weather on the day. The rest were successes.”
But these also had to be halted.
“The pop-up events, though good for the sector, began to strain my personal life. Everyone else was getting paid but after planning the gig for a full month, I would go home with as little as US$50.
“This was because the bar and the sound system were no longer mine. I had to hire the system and then pay the different bands first then take whatever was left. So I ended up doing the pop-ups as a labour of love, to keep the name of the brand alive,” revealed Brickhill.
With the pop-ups not bringing bread to the table, he went back to his first love – film.
“I have been in the film industry for 16 years now. I actually studied for a BA (Hon) degree in Film and Video Production at the Surrey Institute of Art and Design in the UK. After that I worked in the film sector there for some years before deciding to come home and use my knowledge to tell the authentic Zimbabwean story.
“When the pop-ups failed to bring something tangible into my life, I went back into film and worked on several projects. To date, the major one has been directing the 2017 edition of “Battle of the Chefs”. I’m also working on a number of other film projects,” said Brickhill.
The return
“Indeed, the café will return. I have slackened a bit in pushing for it due to my other commitments now, but l am positive that the pop-up gigs will come back this summer.
“When we started this year I had a couple of promises from partners ready to provide us with a sound system but they let me down, so I shelved the idea. As for the fixed establishment, we keep hoping for the economic climate to get better so that we revive our mission to reopen the arts hub,” explained Brickhill.
