‘LoS 2015 best yet’
Organisers of the Lake of Stars (LoS) annual arts festival must be excited with the turn out events as they have already started planning on next year’s festival.
Festival director Will Jameson noted that this year’s event was epic.
“We’ve had thousands of people attend from all over Malawi, Africa and the world. We’ve had incredible performances from Gwamba and Lucius Banda through to Mercury Prize winners Young Fathers and Zimbabwe’s afro-rockers Mokoomba.
“This has been our best yet, with diverse acts on and off stage. Highlights have been the Burundian drummers, the Vagina Monologues Malawi and our interactive technology tent,” he said.
Jameson said they cannot wait for next year’s event following the success of this year’s LoS.
“We are excited with the support rendered to this year’s festival and that is why we can’t wait to start planning for next year’s festival. To us, it just feels like tomorrow,” said Jameson.
The 2015 LoS festival is the 12th in its series of the sensational music and arts, whose strength was partly attributed to its interactive nature.
For the first time since the festival moved to Mangochi in 2009, the gates were opened to the thousands of Mangochi residents for a special community concert sponsored by the United Nations in Malawi. The concert featured the #HeforShe gender equality champion Lawi, musician-activist Lucius Banda and the stars from the Safeguard Young People’s project.
Jameson said the 2015 festival surpassed the previous year’s event in terms of number of acts and goers who were estimated at 4 500.
“We are growing each year both in performance wise and numbers of goers. This is healthy for the reputation of the festival and Malawi as a whole,” he said.
In 72 hours, 90 acts from over 10 countries, including Malawi rocked three stages while fans were engaged in different community outreach adventures, beach fashion show and fringe theatre, literature workshops, a tech hub, urban art with a collaborative graffiti art expo and foodie huts were just some of the experiences available at the festival. n
