Kip Moore, Zac Brown Band to headline inaugural Cape Town Country Festival

• Cape Town will host its inaugural country music festival on October 26-27, headlined by Kip Moore and the Zac Brown Band, following the success of Moore’s previous South African tour.
• The festival will feature a stellar lineup of international and local artists, highlighting the growing country music scene in South Africa.
• With hopes to make it an annual event, organizers aim to bring the spirit of Nashville to Cape Town.

Based on the resounding success of Kip Moore‘s first ever South African tour in March last year, Cape Town is set to launch what organizers are calling one of the largest country music festivals outside of the United States. Kip Moore and the Zac Brown Band will headline the Cape Town Country Festival on October 26 & 27 at Cape Town’s DHL Stadium.

Moore’s headlining slot on the festival follows his successful trio of shows in Cape Town and Pretoria in 2023, where Moore performed at sold out venues.

Wimpie van der Sandt of Heroes Events was instrumental in bringing those shows to South Africa and is producing the Cape Town Country Festival, in partnership with Red Light Management’s Gaines Sturdivant, one of Moore’s managers, serving as an executive consultant.

South African fairy tale

Moore’s popularity and local audience growth gained traction (and) back in 2020 when Van der Sandt, founder, and CEO of BOK Radio, was introduced to Moore’s second studio album, 2015’s Wild Ones. Van der Sandt put Moore’s song “Heart’s Desire” on the radio during primetime hours and it gained massive traction on air, which resulted in a significant increase in downloads.

“South Africa was never on my radar,” said multi-platinum singer/songwriter Kip Moore. He elaborates, “I’ve always wanted to expand as far as I could, but South Africa sounded like a fairy tale. It didn’t sound like a real thing. In early 2021, my manager said we were seeing a crazy spike in our streaming numbers from South Africa, and we didn’t really understand why.”

But Van der Sandt knew there was an audience, and he was persistent, traveling to Nashville to meet with Moore and Sturdivant about his vision. Van der Sandt says, “We knew the synergy between South African music and country music — that wasn’t a surprise.”

On his first SA tour, Moore recalls, “It sounded insane,”. “We want to book an arena and play to a market I have never been in? You never do that”. But Moore agreed and tickets went on sale and the venue sold out 6,800 tickets in seven minutes, the fastest sell outin arena history (in SA). A second show was added, which sold out in an hour. The 30,000-seat Loftus Versfeld Stadium in Pretoria reached out and sold all available seats.

“It was a risk, but it was a calculated risk,” said van der Sandt, who leaned heavily into response from listeners to Moore’s music on Bok Radio. “I’d like to claim I’m a visionary and saw it coming, but I didn’t see it selling out in seven minutes.”

Taking a chance

Moore adds, “The beauty of what Wimpie did is that he doesn’t have any gatekeepers he has to get through. If he decides he likes something, he’ll roll the dice, take a chance, and play it. He’s a true music lover. He’s a prime example that radio can still lead the way — they don’t have to just find out what’s streaming and follow it.”

Zac Brown is also no stranger to South Africa and said in a recent statement, “I absolutely love Africa and try to visit every year,” “We’re so excited that we get to perform at South Africa’s first-ever country music festival in October.” 

The festival further evolves the vital scene of both country music fans and artists in South Africa.

In 2023, Apple Music launched the country music competition series My Kind of Country, which highlighted international competitors. Nearly half of the competitors — including the competition’s eventual winner — hailed from South Africa. Moore says that he and his festival co-organizers are “super excited about shining a light on South African artists.”

Van der Sandt confirms that they have a three-year agreement with the venue, with aims toward making the festival an annual event, on the scale of country music festivals such as Europe’s C2C: Country 2 Country festival and the Tamworth Country Music Festival in New South Wales, Australia.

“We are going to give South Africans a taste of what Nashville is like,” concludes van der Sandt.