South Africans love a good time. With the festive season just around the corner, some are marking their calendars for that much loved 'Ke Dezemba boss'.
This year's festive just got an upgrade with the introduction of the Hey Neighbour festival in Pretoria.
The news of this festival was greeted with shock and excitement as it has a line-up that caters for just about everyone. With people like Tyla and Uncle Waffles both billed not to mention a slew of international acts like Swedish House Mafia, Kendrick Lamar, H.E.R., Rema and Khalid all booked to perform.
Nigeria's Rema was added to the already stacked line up recently at a Hey Neighbour media day in Sandton that saw the honchos behind the brand explain a bit more of what festival goers are likely to experience.
The intimate rooftop setting at Primedia House in Sandton is abuzz with socialites and media types who enjoy a few decadent libations and sumptuous snacks. A playful energy ensnares the space that is peppered with eye catching installations like a Kit Kat dessert bar in the corner of the room, a station for people to sketch, along with various bars sponsored by the many festival partners as a DJ spins some piano as evening takes hold, providing dramatic views of the North side city skyline.
The team behind this monolithic undertaking are no strangers to bringing international talents to South Africa as they have had a hand in the Castle Lite Unlocks series of performances that have seen the likes of Meek Mill and J. Cole all grace local stages.
Plotting a party
Warren Le Grange of Koi Kreative strolls into a boardroom away from the festivities on the media day wearing denim on denim, a yellow bucket hat and white shirt that are from the capsule range of Hey Neighbour festival merchandise.
He is one third of a creative conglomerate. Consisting of three companies collectively referred to as LKG, Lucky No 8, Khoi Kreative and Glen 21 Entertainment run respectively by Glen Netshipise, Lebo Motswenyane and Warren Le Grange, this collective is on the brink of bringing South Africa a social gathering for the ages.
Warren, a doting father of three seems at ease but focused on the task of entertaining thousands at his festival. He and his team did a lot of reconnaissance prior to dreaming up what should be a three-day long extravaganza.
“We were always in the game but never to that scale. So doing concerts, smaller festivals at The Dome,” he says, recounting how things got started for him and his team in this business.
The entrepreneur from Cape Town but who now resides in Sandton explains how his team and partners have always felt like they wanted to do something particularly large scale.
“I mean we always knew we wanted to do something big. We wanted to understand the logistics, the production, the state of the arts. We went to Coachella twice, a Complex Con, and a Lollapalooza. We went to do market research and we realized, these guys, the only difference is they've got bigger budgets.”
The 43-year-old Warren and his team believe we have the talent on the continent to pull off a festival similar to the ones they visited in preparation for Hey Neighbour.
“I think the process was, one, finding a good enough story in terms of an idea that we believe in and can pull the people together and then trying to design what that could look like from experience and then finding the people who can buy into it.”
The process was an arduous undertaking that required an unwavering discipline and a tenacious spirit in terms of procuring the necessary funding, which is of course what all dreams are hinged on these days.
“We know we've got talent in terms of production or talent as in performers."
The biggest setback they incurred on this mission was the advent of Covid-19.
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“We probably would have done this much sooner if we could have and so that set us back probably about two years. But we're here now and God works in that kind of timing. We got to just go with it.”
The idea at first was somewhat of an enigma, even the name of the festival is a curious one and strikes an intrigue in the mind. The first thing they aimed at achieving with the name and the event property, was to eliminate what the festival is not.
“It's not a concert. It's not a hip hop festival. It's not a piano festival. It's not an Afrobeats concert. We wanted to make it immediately friendly, inclusive, and that's sort of what we stand for. We wanted to make it sound universal as well so that anybody from wherever they are can resonate with it. Everybody had a neighbor at some point.”
They hope to bring an array of people together in the name of neighbourly love and a shared appreciation for the arts. He suggests that even though they added Afrobeats sensation Rema to the already brimming line up, there could very well be a few more surprises announced even at the festival and a couple of spin off ventures in the works too.
“Whether that is podcasts, conversations, brand talk shows, but things that give people the sort of confidence to break barriers because you've got more in common than you have that sets you apart. That was important for us.”
The central premise beyond entertainment is to turn strangers into neighbours which is the kind of wholesome feeling that you would expect to be attached to a festival of the arts.
This will be driven home by the atmosphere they will cultivate at the festival as well as some fun additions like stranger speed dating which isn’t slanted to be romantic but simply a rapid fire means of people getting to know other people.
“The concept is if we had to put you in a room with a whole total stranger, what would the end of the night look like? Would you be walking away with your best friend, your future wife, or whatever that is. I think that's what we're trying to drive.”
Luring talents to local stages
In the wake of the calamity that was the Burna Boy saga that involved what was marketed to be a one night only performance by one of the biggest African acts - which later was cancelled - festival organisers have been under a microscope and delivering is as important this year as it was during the year of one of the most epic festival failures with the Fyre Festival drama in the US.
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Securing the funding is a major part of this game but the key lies in the pitch.
“No, look, as we've seen people with funding also couldn't do it. It’s not about whether you have financial backing, it's do you have the portfolio to back it? Do you have the credentials to back it?”
The height of this journey for Warren and his team was experienced when they received confirmation from Kendrick Lamar’s people of his availability and interest to perform.
“When that thing came into our inbox it was incredible. That's the first thing, we pushed on that, so I think it took us three months, maybe more to try and get that contract. You have to start there before you lock down anyone else, because you will be asked, 'who's the talent A'? When you can say talent A is confirmed and you have the contract, it's go time from there.”
Warren is steadfast in how his company has gone about earning their stripes in this space which has afforded them the trust of his audience, sponsors and the talent they have managed to attract.
“I think my first artists were Justin Timberlake and Wiz Khalifa and then after that was J. Cole and then it just grew. I think we became quite reputable and especially Glen21 Entertainment and Koi Kreative just from a creative point of view, people started recognizing that these are the guys that work with big talent and are very capable of doing large scale production.”
He says their reputation preceded them at times and so people abroad have also taken to vouching for them, which never hurts when trying to attract foreign headliners.
Providing more to the audience
They also realized a fundamental difference between festivals here and the ones they used as case studies overseas. The moments in between the acts you would like to watch are usually vacuous here at home, but overseas there is an abundance of attractions on the periphery of the main stages that can also provide amusement as you take a break from the music or make your way to a different area of a festival.
"Partnering with the right people was also key like partnering with GalaXBoy to help us design really slick festival merchandise got me excited. You can expect some limited edition items there, expect some surprise drops from brands that they will be announcing there, and you might even expect some surprise artists that we won't announce.
"I think what we want people to walk away feeling like man I felt safe, inspired, rejuvenated I felt like I made new friends, and I heard music I've never heard before."
He would like for you to leave having booked your ticket for next year already and he confidently adds that their efforts with this inaugural Hey Neighbour have already helped them secure some astounding talents for the next iteration.
“I would encourage readers to come to the festival because it's never been done before, it's an African first, and it’s by Africans for Africans so there's a big power play there in terms of the bravery, innovation and audacity. Besides that, it's going to be a dope experience and you want to make sure you get a ticket or at least dial into .947 and see if there are competitions or something where you can get a freebie at.”
Giving a word of advice to upcoming events organisers, he says “there’s a reason we're doing this as Africans, we want to inspire a future generation of people who look like us, who sound like us, who come from where we come from to say, bro, we didn't just arrive here, we pushed, and we did the work to get where we are. You can do it too, but you got to do the work, you got to fail as hard as you succeed.”
