The Sunday News
Simba Jemwa, Sunday Leisure Correspondent
PREPARATIONS for the reconfigured Victoria Falls Carnival are now at an advanced stage with part of the line-up of artistes who will perform already finalised.
The Victoria Falls Carnival will be held from 29 April to 1 May, 2022 after organisers moved it from December to April this year. Last year it was cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The event’s director, Craig Bright revealed that preparations have been going well and that three artistes each from South Africa and Botswana and four from Zimbabwe have been booked for the carnival which has been moved from the traditional end of year to April.
“Things have been going extremely well on our side. The date change to the end of April was met with such positivity and we are preparing for record numbers in our beautiful home city of Victoria Falls.
“We are well ahead of the curve with regard to ticket sales and the response to artistes announcements so far have been through the roof. We have seen this much excitement and engagement in the past nine years so everything is building up to what’s going to be an incredible tenth edition of carnival,” Bright told Sunday Life.
From South Africa, the carnival will have DJ Maphorisa, Kabza de Small, Master KG while ShaSha, Gemma Griffiths, Nutty O and King Her make up the local contingent. Botswana will be represented by DJ La Timmy, Koisan and DJ Colastraw.
Bright said response to the new dates have been encouraging so far and overwhelmingly positive. He said they have seen a record number of ticket sales from the start of the campaign for this year’s carnival.
“By moving out of the New Year’s and giving our carnival its own date to celebrate all that is good about Africa and African arts and culture, we have changed the narrative and it’s no longer a celebration of an old year ending and a New Year beginning but a celebration of African arts, music and culture.
“By moving the carnival out of the high season, things are a lot more feasible for our fans. We are also not competing with New Year’s events that are organised all around the world and we will certainly start to get more repeat fans coming year on year,” Bright said.
The organisers of the carnival have a lot of new things in the pipeline that they are very excited to be announcing this year.
“There are going to be a lot more smaller events happening throughout the town during the day. We will also have some incredible artwork on display curated by some of Africa’s finest.
I can’t reveal too much, but I can say one thing: it’s going to be bigger and better than any other Vic Falls Carnival, so come prepared to party your socks off and get your mind blown,” said Bright. –@RealSimbaJemwa
