South Africa’s live entertainment market is built around diverse audiences, genres and experiences, from Amapiano and Afro house to international electronic music and disco.
For event promoters, the challenge is not only to reach these different communities but also to build connections between them without losing the identity that makes each experience distinctive.
For Shaun Duwe (aka Shaun Duvet), founder and CEO of Anything Goes, that opportunity lies in creating a broader cultural platform around the company’s annual programme of events.
The result is Culture in Motion, a campaign designed to bring together the festivals, artist tours and parties in the Anything Goes portfolio under a single creative concept.
“Anything Goes has been around for the past 23 years, and the business focuses on artist tours, music festivals, events and parties — bringing culture together on the dance floor through art, music and culture,” says Duwe.
The company’s events typically run through a six- to seven-month peak season, featuring a wide range of experiences aimed at different audiences.
Rather than marketing every event in isolation, Culture in Motion provides an overarching identity that connects the programme while allowing individual events to retain their own character.
The idea for Culture in Motion emerged while Duwe was in Ibiza, where he regularly visits with his family and draws inspiration from the international music and nightlife scene.
He saw an opportunity to develop a campaign that would extend beyond event promotion and bring together different creative disciplines, including visual art, music and dance.
“I thought it could be a title, a great mindset and a great campaign that we could wrap these coming shows up in,” he says.
Duwe brought the concept to Russell Abrahams, popularly known as Yay Abe, who supported the idea, and the project also includes Liquid Deep, whose new single will serve as the campaign’s soundtrack.
Director Grant De Sousa, a close friend of Duwe’s, was brought on to develop the film component, following his work on the previous year’s campaign, All Roads Lead to the Dance Floor.
That campaign followed characters preparing for nights out and moving between events, including Corona Sunsets Festival, Ultra Music Festival, Paradisco and Konka. The stories culminated in a shared dance-floor experience.
Culture in Motion builds on that concept, shifting the emphasis towards the connections between different cultural and musical communities.
Commenting on the collaboration, Yay Abe said, "It’s been one of the most natural things from the beginning. Shaun came to me with the idea, and I immediately connected with it. Even hearing him explain it now, the way I understand Culture in Motion is that it’s about bringing all these different elements together.
“It’s this combined force of art, music, dance music and dance culture, amalgamating and moving forward together,” says Duwe.
The campaign reflects the breadth of the company’s event portfolio, which includes Ultra South Africa, Corona Sunsets Festival, Konka, Balcony Mix, Groove Room and Paradisco, among others.
Each event speaks to a different audience. Amapiano-focused experiences attract their own communities, while Afro house, disco, house and international electronic music events appeal to different groups of fans.
For Duwe, the opportunity is to recognise those distinctions while creating a wider sense of participation across the portfolio.
“We try and tap into all the markets authentically,” he says.
That approach highlights a broader consideration for live entertainment businesses: a single marketing message may help build awareness across a portfolio, but individual events still need to understand and serve their audiences on their own terms.
By connecting the events through a shared campaign, Anything Goes can create a broader narrative around its programme without requiring every festival or party to offer the same experience.
While Culture in Motion has a cultural ambition, it also serves a practical commercial purpose. Live events depend on ticket sales, audience engagement and the ability to give consumers a compelling reason to attend.
Duwe acknowledges that selling tickets remains part of the equation, but says the wider objective is to bring people together through shared experiences.
“The end goal is to bring South Africa together on the dance floor throughout all of these beautiful parties and events,” he says.
“We just want to bring smiles to people on the dance floor and bring culture and communities together through all of our events.”
Adds Yay Abe, "that’s what this whole process has been about: bringing everything together and celebrating the diversity of South Africa.”
The strategy positions the campaign as more than a collection of event advertisements. It aims to establish a connection between the different experiences and the people who attend them, encouraging audiences to see themselves as part of a broader music culture.
For promoters operating across multiple genres, this offers a way to build a recognisable identity around a portfolio while continuing to develop distinct event brands.
Culture in Motion represents the next stage in Anything Goes’ effort to connect its events through a common creative idea.
By combining film, music and visual storytelling with its live programme, the company is seeking to show how different scenes can coexist and contribute to a broader cultural experience.
For Duwe, the central idea is straightforward: bring people together, create memorable experiences and allow music to connect communities that might otherwise remain separate.
“Come to the parties, feel the energy and be a part of it all,” he says.
As the campaign rolls out across the upcoming event season, its challenge will be to translate that shared identity into audience engagement while preserving the authenticity of each event.
For Anything Goes, Culture in Motion is an attempt to make the connections between its events as meaningful as the experiences themselves.
