Festivals that should be on your bucket list

Music, drinks, lights and thousands of people is the recipe for a great festival. Going to a festival requires planning, who to take, what to wear and of course the #Exitplan. The reason most people go to festivals is the attractive artist line up with some festivals going on for several days. So which festivals are on our #YouGottaAttendbBeforeYouDie list?

The Rio de Janeiro Carnival – Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

With around two million people attending this festival it is held every year during the week leading up to Lent, attracting visitors from all over the world. Anticipation builds and the excitement grows as Carnival time gets closer and closer. Without a doubt, this is the favourite holiday celebration in Rio. The city glows with the smiles and energy of the locals. Samba music can be heard coming from neighbourhoods throughout the city and crowds gather to dance and play all day and night straight into the next morning. So be sure to put this festival on your list as a must-attend.

Running of The Bulls – Pamplona, Spain

This feisty festival is held every year from the 6th to the 14th of July where the running of the bulls is the event at the heart of the celebrations and makes the festival a spectacle that would be unimaginable in any other place in the world. It was born from need: getting the bulls from outside the city into the bullring. It starts at the corral in Calle Santo Domingo when the clock on the church of San Cernin strikes 8am. After the launching of two rockets, the bulls charge behind the runners for 825 metres, the distance between the corral and the bullring. The run usually lasts between three and four minutes although it has sometimes taken over ten minutes, especially if one of the bulls has been isolated from his companions. This festival attracts visitors from all over and to see thousands of bulls filling up the streets is a sight one must see before kicking the bucket.

La Tomatina – Spain

This is one festival that can get very dirty but is a whole lot of fun at the same time. La Tomatina is a festival held on a Wednesday towards the end of August in the town of Buñol in the Valencia region in Spain . Tens of thousands of participants come from all over the world to fight in a harmless battle where more than one hundred metric tonnes of over-ripe tomatoes are thrown in the streets.

The weeklong festival features music, parades, dancing, and fireworks. On the night before the tomato fight, participants of the festival compete in a paella cooking contest.

Approximately 30 000 people come to the tomato fight, multiplying by several times Buñol’s normal population of 9 000. There are not many accommodations for people who come to La Tomatina , and thus many participants stay in Valencia and travel by bus or train to Buñol, about 38 km outside the city. In preparation for the dirty mess that will ensue, shopkeepers cover their storefronts in order to protect it from the carnage.

National Arts Festival – Grahamstown, South Africa

The National Arts Festival is an important event on the South African cultural calendar and the biggest annual celebration of the arts on the African continent. Many festival goers take the bus or the train to attend the festival and this is one of those festivals one must experience. The programme comprises of drama, dance, physical theatre, comedy, opera, music, jazz, visual art exhibitions, film, student theatre, street theatre, lectures, craft fair, workshops, and a children’s arts festival.

The event has always been open to all regardless of race, colour, sex or creed. As no censorship or artistic restraint has ever been imposed on works presented in Grahamstown, the Festival served as an important forum for political and protest theatre during the height of the apartheid era, and it still offers an opportunity for experimentation across the arts spectrum. Its significance as a forum for new ideas and an indicator of future trends in the arts cannot be underestimated.

Cape Town Jazz festival – Cape Town, South Africa 

This is a must-attend festival which draws thousands of people and with a 50/50 split of South African and international artists it is worth putting in the diary whether you’re an avid jazz fan or simply have an appreciative ear for good music.

Since its inception in 2000, the festival has grown into a hugely successful event, lasting for two days on five stages at Cape Town’s Convention Centre. It has apparently earned the status of being “the most prestigious event on the African continent” and is known as Africa’s grandest gathering.

Oppikoppi Bushveld Music Festival – Limpopo, South Africa

The warning attached to this description is that Oppikoppi is not for the fainthearted. Situated in the hot, dry and dusty heart of the bushveld, it started ten years ago as an unassuming but hedonistic rock and roll get-together and has simply got bigger, louder and wilder over the years.

Music lovers flock to the event which now boasts a line-up of over 60 international and local acts jamming it up for four days straight (across four different stages). There is also a comedy tent and the stage at the top of the hill (koppie) which focuses more on chilled music, when you need a bit of a break. In addition to the annual festival in August, the organisers also host a more intimate gathering over the Easter weekend, focusing mostly on rock and jazz.

TomorrowLand Festival – Global

Tomorrowland is an electronic music festival held in Boom, Belgium. Tomorrowland was first held in 2005 and has since become one of the world’s largest and most notable music festivals. The festival attracts the top electro artists such as Dimitri Vegas, Like Mike, Afrojack, Nicky Romero and Axwell. David Guetta and Ingrosso.

Tickets for Tomorrowland sell out before the line-up is announced. This festival is live streamed around the world and is known to be a trendsetter when it comes to the music.

Maftown Heights – Johannesburg, South Africa

Maftown Heights is a Motswako-themed festival, which celebrates Setswana rap music and culture as a genre of hip-hop music, originally from Mahikeng in the North West of South Africa. The annual event draws tens of thousands of fans to the event which never fails to disappoint. It’s a must-attend festival for hip-hop music lovers who flock from all over the region.