Johannesburg, 20 February 2024-  On Spring Day, 1 September 2023 SABC TV Licences launched the Win A Holiday Experience competition campaign in an effort to encourage South African customers to pay (or, renew) their TV Licences.

For their efforts, customers would be rewarded with weekly prizes such as Hisense Smart TVs, JBL Bluetooth Speakers, Sony Wireless Headphones and Lenovo laptops. This would be done through a random selection automated by a dedicated microsite that was setup to monitor the competition entries.

In order to qualify for the prizes, the customer needed to pay their TV Licence between 1 September 2023 and 15 December 2023; then go to www.winaholidayexperiencewithsabctvlicences.co.za; register for the competition; receive a confirmation message stating that their entry is valid; then, a random winner would be selected each week from the valid entries.

To sweeten the deal, the overall winner for the competition would get to choose an international experience between the Coachella music festival in California, United States of America. Or, a Bundesliga match in Germany.

Thabo Batshe, a 26-year-old hailing from Kimberley, in the Northern Cape entered the Win A Holiday Experience with SABC TV Licences competition hoping he would get one of the weekly prizes.

“I was on Twitter, and I saw [the competition],” Batshe explained.

“After entering the competition because I had paid my TV Licence about a month ago, I saw a couple of winners on Twitter and Instagram, and I was really rooting for a Play Station because I saw that someone had won a Play Station” he continued.

Like many hopefuls, Thabo Batshe was redirected to the Win A Holiday Experience with SABC TV Licences microsite from social media – where he clicked on one of the links shared from the SABC Corporate pages. After filling out his TV Licence and personal contact details he received a confirmation message on his email account that informed him that his entry was valid and that he had been placed in the pool where a lucky winner would be randomly selected for either a weekly prize or the grand holiday experience.

Clement Maosa from SABC 1’s Skeem Saam broke the news to Thabo Batshe when they secretly met up at the Randburg Sports Complex earlier in the year. “Today is a big day because we are going to meet the winner of the SABC TV Licences’ Win A Holiday Experience competition,” Maosa explained.

“What Thabo does not know is that he is the overall winner of the competition. He thinks he is coming here to pick one of the weekly packages only to realize that he is the grand winner.”

Thabo Batshe, who had entered the competition when he was still at his grandmother’s place in Kimberley, had since moved to Johannesburg for work and is now living in the Randburg area. He was with his girlfriend when Clement Maosa revealed the surprise to him.

“I have been telling him that I actually want to go to Coachella,” the girlfriend explained.

“One thing that I am really looking forward to is experiencing a festival of this nature,” Batshe said in excitement. “And also going overseas and getting to travel.”

Thabo Batshe works in Marketing as a Communication Assistant and completed his Bachelor of Arts in Communication Sciences at the University of the Free State. This was followed by a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in Strategic Communication at the University of Johannesburg. It will be his first time traveling outside of South Africa and he is currently applying for his passport which he will need to get a VISA in order to travel to California, in America.

The Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival will be taking place between the 19th and 21st of April 2024.

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