Billed as South Africa’s friendliest and longest-running outdoor music festival, Splashy Fen holds a special place in the hearts of thousands of South Africans, many of whom have been making the annual pilgrimage to the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands for almost three decades for the event. The three-day long festival is held over the Easter long-weekend on a working farm of the same name in KwaZulu-Natal’s breathtakingly beautiful Underberg.
Pro-Systems Africa News had the pleasure of joining more than 8,000 festival goers at Splashy Fen 2018, where we chatted to various members of the incomparable team who have come together to make Splashy Fen a truly unique experience.
From Humble Beginnings
There are few stories as charming as the one behind the first Splashy Fen festival, held in 1990. According to local sources, Bart Fokkens and the now late Peter Ferraz, got together over a bottle of wine one night and knocked around the idea of getting a few people together to enjoy a weekend of live music on their farm.
Initially, the pair envisioned two hundred or so people gathering at the magnificent natural amphitheatre formed by a river bend on the farm to enjoy a weekend of camping and live music. Much to everyone’s surprise – most of all the unsuspecting organisers – about 1,200 enthusiastic Natalians showed up – all of whom camped under the stars and listened to artists like Tony Cox, the Silver Creek Mountain Band, Plagal Cadence and Syd Kitchen.
The festival has come a long way since those formative years, where a makeshift stage, a tractor-powered generator and a few portable toilets made up the bulk of the infrastructure. According to Ferraz, power was provided by an ancient little tractor driving an erratic farm generator. “Every so often the music would stop for 20 minutes while the tractor was refuelled, but nobody complained. The foundations for today’s mellow Splashy vibe were laid right then and there.”
Over the past 28 years, Splashy Fen has grown far beyond what its originators could have thought possible, but remains true to Fokkens and Ferraz’s vision “to have a really good time with a few musicians playing around campfires, joined by some truly passionate music-lovers.”
Splashy Fen has played host to an impressive list of South African and international artists over the years, including Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Vusi Mahlasela, Hinds Brothers, Madala Kunene, Watershed, Springbok Nude Girls, The Parlotones, Prime Circle and Chris Chameleon to name a few. It remains the largest music festival of its kind to be held in KwaZulu-Natal.
