Oktobafest organisers explain cancellation of main festival
Organizers of the much-hyped OktobaFest have explained the reasons behind the cancellation of this year’s festival at the last minute.
The two-day festival that was to be hosted this week on the 26th to 27th was canceled early this month and instead replaced with mini-club shows across the country.
Tusker the organizer of the cultural festival that has hosted the extravaganza in the last six years says the last-minute cancelation was thoughtful and intentional.
Speaking candidly to Nairobi News in Kisumu over the weekend at the Da Club Place mini-show where Bensoul delivered an hour-long stellar performance to a mammoth crowd that included Nairobi Senator Edwin Sifuna, Tusker marketing manager Christine Kariuki dismissed the analogy.
Was the cancellation of the main Oktobafest Festival a consequence of what happened at the Walker Town Festival?
The decision to deconstruct the main festival into mini-festivals was to open up access to the festival to more of our fans across the country. We recognize that Oktobafest is an important calendar event for our fans in Nairobi, so we have ensured that even though we are opening up the festival to the rest of the country, Nairobi still gets Oktobafest experience every weekend spread across the city.
Replacing the main event with mini-shows, does it offer the same experience as that of curating a festival?
Tusker Octobafest has grown over the years and we believe now is the right time to open it up to even more people across the country. We’re reimagining Octobafest from one big moment to many moments.
Is this the new plan for the future, to have mini-shows all over the country instead of one festival?
Oktobafest is an annual festival. The format of the festival may be different each year, but we remain committed to providing a platform to celebrate our beer and culture each year.
Last year’s festival featured acts from East Africa, will there be such acts at this year’s mini-shows?
As Oktobafest is an annual event, each year is an opportunity to take a different approach to our execution to give our fans a new experience every year.
This year’s festival came at a time when the Kenyan entertainment scene had grown exponentially and we saw more Kenyans consuming a lot of local content, which informed our decision to have an all-Kenyan Oktobafest. This is not to say that you will not see more East African acts at future Oktobafests.
So far, six Oktobafest mini-shows have taken place across the country in Nairobi, Eldoret, Juja, Thika, Nanyuki, and Kisumu, with four more scheduled for Saturday this weekend in Kiambu, Ngong, Ruaka, Karatina and Mombasa.