Afro-Nation Festival and the wonders of good organisation
Kenya’s boy band Sauti Sol performs during the Afro Nation Festival held at the Praia da Rocha beach, in Portimão, southern Portugal from June 28 to June 30.
in Portimão, Portugal
Last week, Portugal hosted one of the biggest festivals in the whole of Europe, the Afro Nation Festival. Held at the Praia da Rocha beach, in Portimão, southern Portugal, the festival saw African music lovers from over 140 countries assemble in one place. According to the organisers, close to 50,000 people attended the three-day beach festival, held from Wednesday, June 28 to Friday, June 30.
According to the mayor of Portimão, Isilda Gomes, hosting such a major event has boosted the economy of Portimão, and Portugal at large. “This festival has generated millions of euros for the local hospitality industry,” she told The Portugal Resident, last week.
The festival’s highlight was the A-list African musicians lined-up to perform at the annual festival. Among the top musicians included Nigeria’s Burna Boy, who had a sold-out 80,000 capacity stadium performance in London less than a month ago, and Davido, who has the current top selling song, ‘Unavailable’.
Other top performers included American hip-hop legend and entrepreneur 50 Cent; Nigeria’s Wizkid, Fireboy DML, Arya Starr, Asake; France-based Malian singer Aya Nakamura and rappers Booba Brothers; South Africa’s Afocalistic, DBN Gogo, DJ Maphorisa, Major League DJs; Jamaican dancehall music star Popcaan; as well UK female rappers Ms Banks and Lil Simz.
Kenya was represented by our very own boy band Sauti Sol, who are currently on their planned final world tour as a band, across Europe and America.
But with such a crowd in and around the festival, how did the organisers manage to pull it off with little or no incidents? According to Afro Nation’s head of media and publicity Nathan Hetherington, it takes many months of planning and collaboration between international event management experts and local facilitators.
“We are doing two major festivals back-to-back on the same beach,” said Nathan during the festival. “This week we have Afro Nation, and next week we have the largest hip-hop festival in Europe, The Rolling Loud festival.” Having two high-capacity festivals back-to-back helps in terms of logistics and use of event equipment and personnel, added Nathan.
“After Afro Nation, the stage remains intact and will be ready for Rolling Loud festival, with just a few days apart,” he said. Apart from a few modifications backstage for artistes’ VIP rooms, mainly depending on artistes technical and hospitality riders, everything else remains the same, including the toilets, bars, restaurants and event access gates. The artistes’ hospitality rider dictates what needs to be included in their VIP rooms backstage, mostly for the comfort and preference of individual artistes. Some artistes demand to have specific high-end bottles of drinks and food, seats, a luxury bathroom and a bed, even if all they will do is spend like half an hour before going on stage and head back to their more luxurious hotel rooms away from the venue.
The technical riders include the list of equipment and instruments to be used on stage. For instance, Burna Boy prefers all his live band instruments to be shipped to wherever he is performing and cannot share with other musicians. The same case applies to other stars like Davido and Wizkid, among others.
Logistical challenges would occur when one artiste has to exit the stage, they go with all their instruments, while the next one comes in with theirs. All this has to be done in a simultaneous way, such that music fans would not get bored as they wait for the next act on stage. It was amazing to see how the technical crew did it, spending a maximum of 20 minutes between one big act to the next one, leaving the MCs to hype up the crowd as the set up is being changed. Burna Boy and Davido, due to the detail of how many instruments they wanted on stage, are the only stars who took slightly more than half an hour to get on stage.
Controlling such a mammoth crowd for three days was a completely different game altogether. Praia Da Rocha, which loosely translates as a rocky beach, stretches slightly over one kilometre in a built-up area facing the Atlantic Ocean.
There were three main admission gates: the Golden Circle, the VIP and the general admission. With residential houses around the beach, security personnel did a great job controlling the crowds, with limited motor vehicle access. The first point was about 500 metres away from the main event area. This is where fans collected their wrist bands depending on the ticket one had. After that, directions were clearly marked on how to access the venue accordingly.
And it’s not a cheap event, for anyone who wanted to attend. The golden circle ticket goes for £574, the VIP is £264 and for general admission is £176, per person, for the three days. There were no daily tickets available.
With a golden circle ticket, one is within an arm’s reach to the artiste and the main stage, a seated restaurant with table service, priority festival entrance, luxury serviced toilets, VIP bars with a faster service and access to a private beach. The VIP tickets have access to a private beach, bars with faster service, luxury toilets and table service restaurants. The general admission ticket is just the access to the event and stay in the general area of the festival.
The backstage access was only given to the accredited media personnel for private interviews with the artistes, event production crew and the artistes with their teams.
All these things needed to run simultaneously, with every member of local and international production crews playing their part well.
Co-founded by two of Nigeria’s music entrepreneurs Obi Asika and Adesogun Adeosun, Afro Nation was first held in Portugal in 2019 at the same venue, where about 20,000 fans attended. After being postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the festival only came back last year and this year was its third edition.
“It brings us so much joy to see so many people come to celebrate our culture with us,” said the London-based co-founder Adesogun, popularly known as Smade. “The love and unity shared by all is what makes this festival so special to many, and what drives us to create the best experiences we can for our people.”
Last year, Afro Nation started its first event outside Portugal, where it held its debut in Accra, Ghana in December. This August, Afro Nation will be held in Detroit, Michigan, USA and later in the year in Lagos, Nigeria. According to the organisers, plans are under way to have the event venture into South Africa and Kenya, among other countries.
