Win Franschhoek Oesfees Tickets (Closed)

Oesfees 2011

Winners of this com­pet­i­tion are Netacha Kayser and Megan Johnson. Congratulations, we hope you enjoy the Festival!

SA-Venues.com and Solms-Delta are giv­ing away a total of 4 tick­ets to the Franschhoek Oesfees (two lucky win­ners will each win 2 tick­ets). The 2011 Franschhoek Oesfees music, food and wine fest­ival — a day of tra­di­tional live Cape music, Kaapsekos, and Vastrap — cel­eb­rates the end of har­vest at Solms-Delta Wine Estate, on Saturday the 26^th of March 2011, from 11h00 to 21h00.

Performers include MC Soli Philander, Radio Kalahari Orkes, Valiant Swart en Ollie Viljoen, Stef Bos, Tribal Echo, Hannes Coetzee, Brasse van Kaap and Les Javan. Enjoy unique Cape sounds of vas­trap, langarm, Cape jazz, ghoema, klopse, and boeremusiek by Philip de Villiers and the Blinde Boereorkes, Papier Familie and many oth­ers. The food is authen­tic Kaapsekos avail­able through­out the day. Continued

Infecting the City Festival, Cape Town

The Infecting the City fest­ival is on in Cape Town from the 21^st to 26^th of this month.  Titled ‘Treasure’ the fest­ival this year cel­eb­rates both the Mother City and South Africa's wide spec­trum of dif­fer­ent cul­tures, tra­di­tions and her­it­ages.  Among other per­form­ances will be jazz, Xhosa stick fight­ing, opera, hip hop duels, riel dan­cing and treas­ure hunts. Continued

The Annual Marula Festival in Phalaborwa

The Annual Marula Festival – February 19^th to 26^{th —} The annual Marula Festival in Limpopo will take place in the town of Phalaborwa from February 19^th to 26^th.  Various activ­it­ies are planned for the fest­ival and these will take place at the Impala Park Rugby Stadium.

Among other events on dur­ing the weeklong fest­ival will be the brew­ing of the Marula Festival bever­age, a golf chal­lenge, a half mara­thon and an open air music con­cert.  In keep­ing with the sports trend there will also be youth rugby and street soc­cer ... Continued

Comedy comes to White Mountain from 23 to 26 September!

Comdy at White Mountain

A stable of top stand-up comedi­ans from the Durban School of Comedy will be head­ing for the Drakensberg later this month to per­form at the annual White Mountain Festival near Giant’s Castle from September 23 to 26.

Included on the bill for the daily com­edy hour are Glen Bo, Neil Green, Dusty Rich, Gareth Woods, Paul Cowan, Tharuna Devchand, Duncan Whithers and Jem Atkins, with a guest appear­ance by Johannesburg musical comedian, Deep Fried Man.  Comedic styles range from tra­di­tional stand-up with a darker edge to quirky, impres­sion­istic and anec­dotal ... Continued

Vusi Mahlasela confirmed for White Mountain 2010

One of South Africa’s most cel­eb­rated musi­cians, Vusi Mahlasela is set to enthrall audi­ences at this year’s White Mountain Festival, com­ing up over the Heritage Day long week­end from 23–26 September at White Mountain Lodge near Giant’s Castle in the Central Drakensberg.

With a sound that is a hybrid of folk, world, blues and soul, Mahlasela is an accom­plished singer-songwriter, gui­tar­ist, per­cus­sion­ist, com­poser and arranger, whose music has bridged gen­er­a­tions both at home and abroad.  Renowned for his dis­tinct, power­ful voice and poetic, optim­istic lyr­ics, he has per­formed along­side the likes of Alicia Keys, Dave Matthews, Josh Groban and Angelique Kidjo at shows that include Nelson Mandela’s 90^th birth­day cel­eb­ra­tion in London’s Hyde Park and, most recently, the 2010 FIFA World Cup Kick-off Concert in Soweto. Continued

GREAT Walk and MORE Exhibition in Woodstock, Cape Town

Arts Festival

Woodstock and more spe­cific­ally Greatmore Street will be going art mad on 25 and 26 June 2010 in Woodstock, Cape Town The GREAT Walk and MORE Exhibition intends to cre­ate a pos­it­ive image of the area while bring­ing con­tem­por­ary art into the community’s space. Expect to see a vari­ety of works which include art, art install­a­tions, sound install­a­tions, pro­jec­tions, live art per­form­ances and music and street performance.

The com­munity will be get­ting involved in this event by lend­ing their stoeps and shop fronts as exhib­i­tion space and indi­vidual gal­ler­ies. This will be an art gal­lery extra­vag­anza like none you have exper­i­enced before. The Greatmore Gallery’s space will fea­ture a cur­ated exhib­i­tion as well as works cre­ated through two work­shops hos­ted at the venue. Other artists and gal­ler­ies are encour­aged to exhibit their own works. Continued

Kom pomp saam ... Say what? Get to the Naboom Windpomp Fees

Fun at the Festival

If you haven’t yet been to the charm­ing town of Mookgophong (pre­vi­ously known as Naboomspruit), then here is the per­fect reason to, the Naboom Windpomp Fees from 10 to 12 June 2010. Located at the foot of the Swaershoek Mountains this little vil­lage used to be a rest sta­tion for the Pretoria-Polokwane mail coach back in the 1800’s. The town became a hive of activ­ity in the early 1900’s with the dis­cov­ery of min­er­als and has never looked back. Fluorspar and tin are still mined in the area.

The Naboom Windpomp Fees is an annual event held at the Buffelshoek Agri Depot. The fest­ival gets its name from the Afrikaans word for a wind­mill (wind­pomp). Windmills are pretty use­ful things as they con­vert the energy of wind to rota­tional motion which in turn powers equip­ment such as wind­pumps for get­ting fresh water from under­ground. The fest­ival is hos­ted by the Euphorbia Christelike Onafhanklike Skool and the name of the fest­ival is rep­res­ent­at­ive on the fact that the school pro­duces water for itself and the excess will flow into the com­munity ... Continued

Knysna Oyster Festival 2010 countdown begins ...

With less than a month to go until the 2010 Pick n Pay Knysna Oyster Festival kicks off, organ­isers say that the fest­ival is expec­ted to attract thou­sands of sports­men and women, food lov­ers and party goers to Knysna this July.

Jonathan Ackerman, mar­ket­ing dir­ector of Pick n Pay Retail, said that he is delighted with the way the fest­ival has grown since Pick n Pay became involved as nam­ing spon­sors in 2004. “At the time we said we would assist to add value and grow the fest­ival and, in doing so, make a worth­while con­tri­bu­tion to local eco­nomic devel­op­ment, because Pick n Pay is com­mit­ted to sup­port­ing events which bene­fit the local com­munity and local char­it­ies. Continued

Plan ahead — Suidooster Festival 2010

Suidooster Festival 2010

Next year sees the 7^th Suidooster Festival. The organ­isers are so proud of the festival’s qual­it­at­ive and quant­itave growth that they are rolling out a comeback fest­ival, filled to the brim with audi­ence favour­ites: faith­ful and well-loved Suidoosterfees artists to tickle the fancy of every fest­ival goer.

Look out for Vinette Ebrahim and Theodore Jantjies in Vaselinetjie, David Kramer as dir­ector of Krismis van Map Jacobs and in his own Kaapse Breyani — the full­house hit of 2009 — Neels van Jaarsveld in Bure oppie Bank, Terence Bridgett in All Soaped Up, Sandra Prinsloo in Die Naaimasjien — another full­house hit of 2009 — Emile Minnie in Kaapse Karnaval to set the mood for the upcom­ing Cape Town Carnival in March ... Continued

It's the Ficksburg Festival, my cherry!

The Ficksburg Festival takes place this year from 18 to 20 November 2010!

Cherry Festival

Ficksburg didn't mean that much to me until I vis­ited the pretty little town set on the banks of the Caledon River. It lies at the foot of the beau­ti­ful Imperani Mountain in the Free State, for those of you who didn't know, and I had only heard of it before the fest­ival because a school friend of mine hailed from there (and since we were at school in Durban at the time, you can under­stand how she was regarded with a fair amount of  incredulity).

First off let me say that if you're a fan of cher­ries, then this is the fest­ival to attend. For the last couple of years at least, cher­ries seem to have given the shelves of my local Pick n Pay the run around. That, or they were in and off the shelves so fast that I didn't even catch a whiff of the dainty red stoned fruit! Thus a trip to the Eastern Free State around the third week of November may be the closest you will get to this delect­able dainty ... Continued

More October Events

What can you do for the rest of October you are won­der­ing? If your cal­en­dar isn’t filled yet, why not take a look at some of the events tak­ing place around South Africa for the rest of this month.

MTB Races

in the Free State ...
Bloemfontein hosts the MTN OFM MTB Race on 31 October 2009, if that is a bit of a mouth­ful the import­ant inform­a­tion you need to know is that this is a moun­tain bike race for the adventurous.

Take part in either the 25 or 50km race, entries close on Monday 19 October so get yours in today. Telephone +27 (0)82 791‑6003 for more inform­a­tion ... Continued

FNB Whisky Live Festival – put it in the diary!

Whisky Live Festival

I'm not a whisky fan. I's sad, but true. However, I can under­stand how the FNB Whisky Live Festival, now in its sev­enth year and held in both Jo'burg and Cape Town, might be some­thing every­one attends. I didn't know this, but South Africa is the fifth largest Scotch mar­ket by volume in the world. And last year's event had close to 17 000 vis­itor attend.

So, I obvi­ously need a bit of an edu­ca­tion in whisky, it seems, if I'm to join the tip­plers, and in par­tic­u­lar because I have a rather beau­ti­ful bottle of Three Ships sit­ting on a shelf gath­er­ing dust! Continued