Festival shows SA’s true colours

It gives me great joy to report that this past weekend, what is being billed as one of the biggest international music events to take place in South Africa – the Heineken Hey Neighbour Festival – not only took place, but it was a resounding success.

If you remember the year 2017 and the Fyre Festival (dubbed the greatest party that never happened), a fraudulent luxury music festival founded by con artist Billy McFarland, you will understand why I am mentioning that Hey Neighbour actually happened.

Local and international artists such as Zakes Bantwini, Nasty C, Tyla, Kendrick Lamar, H.E.R and others were spectacular on stage, as they serenaded the gathered crowd just outside of Tshwane.

The most intriguing aspect of the all-weekend party for me was what happened at the camping site. This is where South Africans showed their true colours as they spent quality time with each other.

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As a representation of South Africa, there were various tents on offer.

They ranged from bare minimum, one-sleeper accommodation, right up to humongous, well-furnished and ostentatious corner tents fitted with private showers and toilets, as well as windows to look down on the rest of the campers.

Somewhere in between were the middle-class, run-of-the-mill tents that boasted just a bed, bedding and a single electricity plug point. This is where hard-working revellers would pass out each night after heavy partying.

It was heart-warming to witness how attendees from all backgrounds, races, sexual orientation and fashion sense, for a weekend, sang and danced along to amapiano hits, while briefly forgetting that 2023 was a tough year.

ALSO READ: Three artists withdraw from Hey Neighbour Festival

This was a record-breaking year as we survived 332 days (and counting) of load shedding, various interest rate hikes, countless fuel increases, floods as a result of climate change and even earthquakes.

But still, attendees somehow managed to put that aside and lost themselves to Electronic Dance Music courtesy of The Chainsmokers.

As a country, let us take the lessons from the festival and implement them on national stages such as our political landscape, service delivery and race relations.

From those who could barely afford to attend the festival, to those who purchased multiple tickets, South Africans used the creative arts to show that the Rainbow Nation can be as colourful as we want it to be.