Stories By Siphesihle Dlamini
The MTN Bushfire 2024 promises to be a bigger and better edition as it has revealed new developments and new opportunities.
Increased Golden Lounge and Main Arena space, even more stages and plenty of opportunities to Bring Your Fire are some of the features to look forward to at the 17th edition of MTN Bushfire, which will be held from May 31– June 2, 2024.
The festival’s next-level developments were unpacked at the official launch of the event on Friday, April 5, 2024, at House On Fire, in front of a distinguished audience.
The guest speakers included His Excellency Prime Minister Russell Dlamini, the Minister for Tourism and Environmental Affairs, Jane Mkhonta-Simelane, and the Minister for Sports, Culture and Youth Affairs, Bongani Nzima, as well as the EU Ambassador, Dessislava Choumelova.
The MTN Bushfire team elaborated on the sustainable developments that the festival will be introducing this year as part of its long-standing commitment to staging a responsible event and its continuous efforts to improve the festivalgoer experience.
This year, the Main Arena has been considerably extended while the Golden Lounge has almost doubled in size and now incorporates garden walks through some of the indigenous vegetation at Malandela’s. The campsite environments have been greatly expanded too, with even more permanent ablution facilities.
More parking space has been added to the festival and will remain as paid parking to encourage car-pooling to lower traffic congestion and carbon emissions. Perhaps most exciting of all, the festival will boast 8 stages this year.
Apart from the revered Main Stage, Amphitheatre, and Ballantine’s Firefly stages, the newly added Bring Your Fire Zone stage will enjoy a full programme, and this year the KidZone also gets a stage in its new, expanded area.
Moreover, festival partners Corona, Heineken and Jägermeister will all bring their fire with three performance and entertainment stages.
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Festivalgoers will have to prepare for a wide-ranging feast of music to suit every taste, and the MTN Bushfire festival app is recommended for scheduling the acts that guests will want to see.
These are just some of the highlights of the wealth of fresh experiences awaiting festivalgoers in 2024, complementing the festival’s celebration of diversity, spirit of inclusion and atmosphere of tolerance that keeps festivalgoers, also known affectionately as Fire Starters – coming back year after year.
Theme
MTN Bushfire’s clarion call to action, ‘Bring Your Fire’ explores the transformative power of the arts to inspire and illuminate individuals to ignite collective action to tackle the burning issues of our time.
This year, Bring Your Fire finds expression in the MTN Bushfire theme: FIREWORKS. At a time when there are so many pressing global issues affecting humanity, MTN Bushfire’s Fire Works theme, or Fire at Work, also manifests fire as action, dynamically presenting festivalgoers with the opportunity to give of their time – to Bring Your Fire.
FIREWORKS is about active service in the spirit of Bring Your Fire, uniting and using our collective energy to improve the world for ourselves and others. Your Fire is your energy, your spirit, your passion, and your drive to make a tangible difference.
In 2024, MTN Bushfire will bring the spirit of FIREWORKS to life with an exciting new volunteer initiative. This year, the festival will be launching the inaugural edition of the annual Bring Your Fire Volunteer Week, which will be held annually in June in collaboration with partner organisations.
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Festivalgoers will be able to sign up for a day of service on online festival platforms, as well as at the Bring Your Fire Zone during the festival weekend. More information will be shared on our digital platforms shortly.
Free advocacy space
Additionally, in another new initiative, MTN Bushfire is going to recognise an extraordinary changemaker or dynamic organisation aligned with MTN Bushfire’s Bring Your Fire values by giving them a free activation space in the Bring Your Fire Zone to advocate their cause as well as visibility on MTN Bushfire’s digital platforms.
MTN Bushfire will soon be inviting nominations, so stay tuned for the call-out on all MTN Bushfire social media channels.
Online Golden Lounge tickets to the MTN Bushfire festival have once again sold out in record time, but tickets are still available exclusively for emaSwati on MTN Mobile Money at specially discounted rates. Tickets can be purchased through MoMo Marketplace on WhatsApp.
