Organisers of the Bulawayo Arts Awards (BAA) have officially confirmed that the city’s premier cultural event will take place later this year, putting an end to months of speculation.
While specific dates and venue details remain under wraps, a teaser posted on the awards' official Facebook page gave an affirmative nod to the ceremony's return:
“The ninth edition of the Bulawayo Arts Awards is coming soon. Get ready to celebrate creativity, excellence, and the arts. Stay tuned.”
The confirmation comes as a relief to local creatives and arts enthusiasts, reaffirming the resilience of a platform that has weathered financial strains, postponements, and structural disruptions in recent years.
Established in 2017, the Bulawayo Arts Awards were created to address a longstanding gap in national artistic recognition by providing a dedicated, high-profile platform for creatives in Bulawayo and the surrounding Matabeleland regions.
Dubbed “Bulawayo’s biggest dress-up event”, the ceremony quickly grew into one of Zimbabwe’s most celebrated cultural gatherings.
Spanning music, theatre, dance, poetry, literature, fashion, film, and visual arts, the awards have elevated local talent onto national and global stages.
In 2018, the event secured a major partnership with United Refineries Limited under its Roil cooking oil brand, leading to its rebranding as the Roil Bulawayo Arts Awards (RBAA) and providing critical financial backing to scale up production.
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Despite its success, the journey of the awards has been far from smooth, frequently marked by funding bottlenecks, administrative hurdles, and external shocks:
The onset of the Covid-19 pandemic severely affected live performance sectors like theatre and dance. Organisers were forced to move the event online in 2020 and push back the 2021 edition to November to give affected artists time to produce eligible work.
The eighth edition, originally slated for late 2024, was pulled from the calendar. Organisers cited the need to secure new corporate sponsors, rebrand, and address "limited representation" across certain artistic genres.
After two years of uncertainty, the eighth edition made a triumphant return on December 20, 2025, at ZITF Hall 3.
The ceremony celebrated two years' worth of artistic output while honoring late cultural icons — including Sihlangu Dlodlo, Pathisa Nyathi, and Babongile Sikhonjwa — by naming key category awards in their memory.
The announcement of the ninth edition signals a move toward stability for the flagship event. With the previous edition restoring public and corporate confidence, artists and audiences alike are anticipating the call for nominations as the city prepares to celebrate its rich creative ecosystem once again.
