Grahamstown National Arts Festival 2011 bigger and better

THE GRAHAMSTOWN NATIONAL ARTS FESTIVAL 2011 BIGGER AND BETTER

By Akhona Valashiya

Out of thousands of applications to participate at the 2011 Grahamstown National Arts Festival 600 art shows made the cut.

The Festival which started in 1974 has become a tradition for Grahamstown residents over the years and organisers say it gets better each year. International producers and talent scouts from countries as far as the Netherlands, France, the DRC, Ruanda, the UK, Mali, Morocco, Argentina, Egypt, Nigeria and more came to this year’s Festival to scout new talent.

 The Festival Office’s media spokesperson Gilly Hemphill said this year is better in terms of the media coverage and the Festinos’ turnout compared to last year where the Festival was clashing with the FIFA soccer world cup.

Adding something new to the Festival, the Post Office will be launching its introduction of indigenous postal stamps during the Festival on Sunday the 3rd of July, the postal stamps will allow people attending the Festival to post things anywhere in South Africa directly from the Festival.

“ However each year has its challenges and this year our biggest challenge is power failure which interrupts the shows, we also have a new technical team and its always a challenge working with new people but so far everything is going according to plan”, said Hemphill.

It has only been three days and according to the Festival Office all is going according to plan and schedule.