The audience of the Antillean Festivities has to be patient for a year longer. — © Koen Bauters
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Just like last year, it will remain quiet this summer in the Blauwbossen in Minderhout (Hoogstraten). The Antillean Festivities were preparing for a modified edition in the second weekend of August, but saw no other option than to cancel the festival due to the measures imposed.
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Ronny van den Ackerveken
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The organization announced two months ago that under the name Antilliaanse Feesten Piti there would be a smaller-scale festival, without visitors or bands from across the ocean. “The construction of the festival site would normally have started this weekend,” says Freya Verschueren of the Antilliaanse Feesten. “We had been working on the other preparations for some time. The continuing uncertainty about the validity of tests and rules for foreign visitors made us decide on Friday after much deliberation to cancel everything. Taking tests in particular is not feasible for us. We want to be a festival of freedom and fraternization, not a festival with a test village.”
“What also played a role is the message we received a few days ago about Jacob Desvarieux, the singer and founder of our main act Kassav’. He is in a coma in hospital with a corona infection. There is little you can do about that as an organization, but it did mean an extra setback.”
Maximum capacity
The presale of the tickets went smoothly. “The maximum capacity on Friday and Saturday was set at 7,000 to 9,000 visitors, the limit for Thursday was 5,000. We cannot give any information about the number of tickets sold, but the presale showed that a lot of people wanted to come to the festival. The reactions of visitors to the cancellation are understanding. They realize that we had little choice with the measures imposed. The number of negative reactions can be counted on the fingers of one hand,” says Freya Verschueren.
“The artists who would perform also support our decision. However, they were really looking forward to being on stage again in front of a large audience. Hopefully we can organize a normal festival again next year.” Tickets remain valid for the 2022 edition.
antilliaansefeesten.be
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