Genre Festival Frequency Annually Country Malawi | Dates September 25–27 Location(s) Lake Malawi Years active 11 years | |
Lake of Stars Festival is an annual three-day international festival held on the shores of Lake Malawi, the third largest lake in Africa. The festival was started in 2004 and attracts over 3,000 attendees with musical acts from Africa and the United Kingdom.
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History
The festival was founded by British tourist Will Jameson. Jameson visited Malawi in 1998. He was a student at John Moores University and took a year off to work with The Wildlife Society. That work sent him to Malawi. Upon returning to college, Jameson started a club night as tribute to his trip, called Chibuku Shake Shake, the name of a brand of Malawian beer. The club night was named the best club night in the United Kingdom 2004 by Mixmag. That same year, Jameson held the first festival. An estimated 700 people attended, the majority from Africa. The 2011 Lake of Stars attracted over 3,000 attendees from Europe and Africa. The festival was opened with the Malawian ministry of tourism skydiving onto the festival beach. In 2014, the festival was named one of the top seven African music festivals to attend by CNN. Time Out named Lake of Stars as having the most beautiful festival location in the world, in 2015.
Festival management
The majority of Lake of Stars staff are volunteers and the majority of performers get little to no pay. Over $1 million is generated by the festival for the local economy.
Activities
The festival organizes volunteer opportunities for festival attendees, providing service to a variety of charities sponsored by the festival including the Microloan Foundation. Attendees also visit orphanages to spend time with children and play games and sports with them. The festival also includes talks, similar to TED talks, theatre, clowns, dance and mixed martial arts.
Performers
A wide swath of international performers play at Lake of Stars, many from Africa and the United Kingdom. These artists include, but are not limited to: