Two festivals scheduled to take place in Bloemfontein, with the same offering and running for the same duration, have people at a crossroads.
The Lemo Fest taking place in the township will run from 4 until 12 October, while the other, Cultural Urban African Festival (Cufa), will be from 3 to 13 October.
The Lemo Fest’s first instalment was held last year during October at the Lemo Mall in Heidedal. The Cufa is planned to take place in the city.
This year’s edition of the Lemo Fest will continue as planned after it survived a “botch” in a legal case instituted by the Free State’s MEC for Community Safety, Roads and Transport Jabu Mbalula. He filed an urgent interdict in the Free State High Court to prevent the event and the erection of structures on the piece of land where the festival activities will be held.
The court, seeing no urgency, dismissed with costs Mbalula’s urgent interdict against the shopping centre’s owner, Freddie Kenney and Kenworth Group.
Mabalula sought a court order to stop the group and founder Kenney from hosting the event, citing the lack of authorisation for both the event and the construction. A favourable judgment gave the organiser the green light to host the festival, thus ending any doubts.
The Cufa Fest will make its debut, running parallel with the Lemo Fest, which is happening in the township with Kenney re-emphasising the decision to organise a festival of its magnitude in the heart of the township aligned with the vision of turning the township into a business investment venue.
At the launch on 27 June, he said the R50 million plus invested into the festival aims at making it a catalyst to turn townships into investment places and youths into entrepreneurs, as well as to change the mindset that townships are crime hubs. Tying in with the mission and vision to create investor opportunities, he said it was fitting having the slogan “Rea Kasi” (we are going to the township).
The organisers of the two festivals target the small, medium and micro enterprise (SMME) field today. Kenney explained the bravery displayed by challenging the court interdict was because the stakes were high, with the festival expected to accommodate 7 000 attendees and already creating about 386 employment opportunities.
This will be the first time that events with same offering take place in the city since the demise of the Free State government’s Mangaung African Cultural Festival (Macufe), last held in 2022, following an urgent application by DS Consortium, against the bid winner C-Squared and the Department of Sport, Arts, Culture and Recreation, the funder.
The consortium cited gross malace in the R14 million tender.
