On Saturday, March 24, 2012 I attended the annual Cape Town Carnival in Somerset Road, Greenpoint. The theme for this year's event was "Cape to Cairo," highlighting all that is beautiful on our continent. Officially inaugurated in 2010, the 2012 Cape Town Carnival marked the third consecutive year of this widely publicised event. As this was the first one I was attending, I was overly excited to see Cape Town be transformed into a magnificent fortress of colour and life.
The floats and costumes were absolutely out-of-this-world! The various groups were all unique and the hard work that they put into designing and building their floats was very clear. The colours used along with the lighting and other special effects, combined with the breathtaking outfits worn by the performers, made the aesthetics of the event spectacular.
On the other hand, the same cannot be said for the organising of such a major event on Cape Town's calendar. The public was informed that the event would start at 17:00 where attendees could do the "fanwalk" on Someset Road and buy goodies from the stalls along the way. When we arrived at about 17:30 there was no entertainment provided, no signs instructing us where to go and only one or two stalls right at the end of the "fanwalk" near Greenpoint Stadium. The shuttles provided for the event were also only free of charge after 18:00. We therefore could not see the point of arriving 3 hours prior to the event. Their website states that there was a concert in the Stadium forecourt "with various entertainers entertaining the crowds" but none of this was communicated or displayed to the public.
The floats and costumes were absolutely out-of-this-world! The various groups were all unique and the hard work that they put into designing and building their floats was very clear. The colours used along with the lighting and other special effects, combined with the breathtaking outfits worn by the performers, made the aesthetics of the event spectacular.
On the other hand, the same cannot be said for the organising of such a major event on Cape Town's calendar. The public was informed that the event would start at 17:00 where attendees could do the "fanwalk" on Someset Road and buy goodies from the stalls along the way. When we arrived at about 17:30 there was no entertainment provided, no signs instructing us where to go and only one or two stalls right at the end of the "fanwalk" near Greenpoint Stadium. The shuttles provided for the event were also only free of charge after 18:00. We therefore could not see the point of arriving 3 hours prior to the event. Their website states that there was a concert in the Stadium forecourt "with various entertainers entertaining the crowds" but none of this was communicated or displayed to the public.
The actual parade was set to start at 20:00. At about 20:15 we got to see the first act, and then had to wait until about 20:45 before the following acts eventually came past. Between each act was about a five to seven minute gap which completely killed the vibe as we had to just sit around waiting for the next act to come past.
After reading an article on the Cape Town Carnival's website (www.capetowncarnival.com) titled "Cape Town Carnival organizers are celebrating" I could not fathom how they thought it was a success. Although attended by 120000 people, the Cape Town Carnival failed to live up to expectations due to the poor organising detracting from the beauty and excitement of the parades.
Their website states that they forsee this event soon being "the 'biggest' event on the social calendar," but in order for this to happen, they will need to do some major revamps for next year's event.
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