Culture gets shot in arm as festivals join hands
In 2015, the Zakifo music festival in Durban was launched as a sister to Réunion’s annual Sakifo festival
Durban’s Zakifo music festival was born out of Réunion Island’s Sakifo festival. Sakifo, the creole term for "what it takes", put the island’s creative tourism on the map. Started in the fishing village of St Leuin in 2004, the festival has since expanded to the second-biggest city, St Pierre. Today, it is a nine-stage festival with satellite bars, trade zones and the annual Indian Ocean Music Market record industry trade fair. Up to 40,000 people attend the annual event. Merchandise sales are worth €20,000 over the weekend-long festival. In 2012, businessman Sipho Sithole, owner of ZigZag magazine, Andy Davis and Sakifo festival producer Jerome Galabert came together in Réunion and agreed to create a world music festival in Durban. For Sakifo, it was a great opportunity to leverage established networks and take the festival brand to a much bigger market. And a well-supported signature festival was what the city of Durban needed. "I like the idea of a festival that responds to the n...
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