Glitz and glamour in West Africa's Togo

Togolese Prime Minister, Komlam Mally stood to attention along with an estimated 1,800 people, while the Togolese flag showed its colours on screen and the national anthem of Togo rang out through the venue for this year's awards ceremony, the Palais de Congrés. The glittering and glamorous GLO CAF (Confederation of African Football) Awards was the occasion and winners in eleven categories were awarded trophies to the delight of their adoring fans. The who's who of African Football, including the President of CAF, Mr Issa Hayatou and many CAF representatives, as well as Africa's top footballers were present. This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of CAF and the top 10 African footballers of the last 50 years were awarded trophies as well.

Based in Johannesburg, True Colour Events was awarded the contract to produce, stage, decorate, cater for, and manage the entire event. The crew, excluding performers, comprised some 64 professionals, from lighting designers to cameramen, show producers, event co-ordinators, sound designers, show director, decorators, riggers and technicians.

Such was the scale of this event that a DC-10 plane had to be chartered from South Africa to airlift the 60-odd tons of sound, lighting, staging and electrical equipment, tables, chairs, ashtrays, bowls, carpets, tablecloths, draping and even five whole lounge suites to Lome, Togo! We soon discovered that West Africa is probably 95% French, with very few people able to speak English! We learnt some basic French pretty quickly. The challenges of working in Africa, then really became apparent, as the plane landed up in the wrong destination. Frantic calls were made, and eventually after a whole week's delay, the cargo arrived in Lome. Seven days of lost time! This called for ACTION on a grand scale. Down to the last person, everyone dived in and started helping, no matter what their job description!

Décor company WOW Factor miraculously turned a démodé looking entrance and auditorium into a glitzy, trendy entertainment venue fit for a president! The transformation turned the auditorium into a “GLO” universe, as all elements from green seat covers to flag banners to advertising banners hung on pillars, to a powerful and all- consuming stage were created. The front of house too, had GLO's branding alternating with black drapes, flanking the stage on both sides.

True Technical moved in with their gear and within a hard-working, sweat-breaking two days, transformed the stage into an astounding new backdrop for the mesmerising performance to come. The set was constructed and erected, and the floor painted a pale grey and then spattered with black and white speckles. The transformation of this rather dilapidated old venue into something shiny, bright and new, was truly an inspiration to behold. In between this going on, the show director and choreographer were honing and fine-tuning the dance routines for the big night. On the technical front, the lighting designer, having mounted his lights on the fly-bars and on stage, stayed up until 4am, planning, programming and plotting for the following night's performance. The sound designer and video playback operator as well, had many late nights, rehearsing, checking and re-cueing, to ensure a smooth performance.

Four cameramen placed in strategic positions, ensured that the world got to see what happened at the GLO CAF Awards for 2007. The feed was taken live by at least four African countries and also fed to SuperSport in South Africa.

Accompanied by local and international dance troupes, performers included the likes of King Mensah, South Africa's Vicky Sampson and 3 Tons of Fun, and Togolese local, King Sunny Ade. The performances had the vociferous audience enthralled as they sang along and cheered for their favourite act. The MC's for the night were Ghanaian, Michelle Attoh and Christopher Bongo from Congo.

Two sizeable generators were hired to prevent blackouts during the show, as the power had already proven to be unstable, tripping several times before the generators were installed. Even after that, problems were experienced with one of the generators, and so the decision was made to buy a new generator and employ it immediately.

Video clips played on the big screens served to announce the nominees in the various categories, to the obvious delight of the packed audience, who whooped, whistled and wowed as each player or coach was announced.. The crowd was also thrilled to see many of their heroes playing in a ‘football music video', and loudly showed their appreciation as they saw goal after goal being scored by the likes of Didier Drogba, Michael Essien and Emmanuel Adebayor, who hails from Togo.

CAF honoured women's football by awarding Cynthia Uwak of Nigeria, the prize for Woman's Footballer of the Year 2007. The coveted African Footballer of the Year Award deservedly went to Mali and Seville striker Frédéric Kanouté.

The finale to the show was led by South African Vicky Sampson and supported by all the other artistes already mentioned. They performed a special song written for Glo around their slogan “Rule Your World”. The English version was translated into French for this year's event and all guests were given a copy of this as a reminder of this awesome event.

Local press and radio and press, excited by the fact that the GLO CAF Awards 2007 came to their city, hailed the event as a major success.

Operations Director of True Colour Events, Ashley Scott would like to extend her gratitude to everyone who was involved in making this event a huge success.