Fete de la Musique Festival attracts the young and not so young over the weekend at Victoria yards
When I exited the venue heading home, just before sunset, more and more people were coming. More motorists were looking for space to park their cars. The queue at the entrance was getting longer and longer with eager and expectant faces.
By Edward Tsumele, CITYLIFE/ARTS Editor
This year, despite the somehow cold weather, fun lovers, mostly young people and the cultured adult urbanites came out of the cocoon of their warm suburban homes to attend in big numbers the annual music feast, Fete de la Musique. This is a popular annual event in Johannesburg organised and sponsored by the French Institute in South Africa, and produced by Bassline Productions.
These fun lovers congregated at Victoria Yards, the rehabilitated part of the city, situated east of Johannesburg, which is a home to artist’ studios, restaurants and coffee shops.
When I arrived there on Saturday, June 21, 2025, at around 3pm, I found myself part of a growing crowd that was filing in, with an entrance tag given to you at the entrance of the venue by ushers for this free show. I guess the tag was to manage the numbers of people. It appeared the producers needed to manage the numbers as by the time I left, which was around 4pm, a 100 metre queue had formed at the entrance. People were still coming in in large numbers. Cars were parked as far away as a Kilometre from the venue. This festival has indeed come of age from its early beginnings 13 years ago in Bohemian Melville, and has since taken place in several venues around the city over the years, including in Newtown, before moving to its current home.
And indeed when I went inside, I witnessed a huge mass of people enjoying themselves. There were long queues forming at the several food stalls that had been put up for the event as well as the coffee shops and restaurants that call this place home. People were mobbing the several stages where musicians and DJs entertained. The eager crowd danced and generally had fun. This was indeed a place for those wishing to catch up on new dance trends by mostly the young and happening. The crowd appeared to be oblivious of the rather grumpy whether. They simply ignored the elements if they were aware of it at all.
It also appeared as if others had just come to socialise, and not necessarily for the music that was pumping around the place as they moved up and down, chatting and minding their own business, notwithstanding the musical vibe that permeated the space. The festival was really a place to connect for friends that ordinarily are busy either with city grinding or choosing social media instead of person-to-person contact.
Fete de la Musique broke this spell in a way as people seemed to be excited for the personal contact between people that last enjoyed such intimate for a long time. This is partly due to the social distance that was created by Covid-19, and also due to the phenomenon of social media, which seems to have replaced personal contact between people in favour of social media contact channels these days. However there is nothing that beats person-to-person contact, because when that happens, which does not happen often these days of social media, magic happens. Information is shared, ideas exchanged, and possible collaborations are discussed. A bond that does not happen when contact is through social media develops between humans. Observing the crowd at the festival, I saw some of those elements in full display.
Personally within 30 minutes of my arrival, I had reconnected with more than a dozen acquaintances, some of whom I had not seen for a long time.
And so in a way, besides of course the music, this festival has come to mean more than just entertainment in Johannesburg, but a space to connect with friends and collaborators under a relaxed and joyful atmosphere.
When I exited the venue heading home, just before sunset, more and more people were coming in, and more and more motorists were looking for space to park their cars in the streets, and the queue at the entrance was getting longer and longer with eager and expectant faces. This year’s iteration of Fete le la Musique must therefore rank as one of the most attended since the festival started in Melville 13 years ago. Then it became a refreshing addition to Johannesburg’s cultural life. I remember the first festival in 2012 in Melville with fondness.
The music was good, company was great, and the free movement from one pub or restaurant to another with the background of performances by artists on 7th Street, just made the whole place to be abuzz. Those were good times in Melville, before the current situation of uncertainty prevailing in this beloved suburb. The life was good, and the festival just accentuated Melville’s position in Johannesburg as a place of art and good vibes. I have even forgiven the occasion for the loss of my Green Mamba, my lovely beetle, which happened to have been my first car in life. It was special in that it was manufactured in the same year I was born, only to be stolen parked next to a church, nogal. And so even the other cars bought after that did not have the same space in my heart.
Be that as it may, all is forgiven as it has been a lovely experience to witness the genesis and the rise and rise of a festival in Johannesburg over the years, that Fete de laMusique has become – a major feature of Johannesburg’s annual cultural calendar that attracts the young and the not so young in one venue for the common interest of music and personal connection. This is a beautiful festival for a city such as Johannesburg with it diverse cultures.
What an experience on Saturday, notwithstanding the rather grumpy whether that Johannesburg’s people dared, and won. Fete de la Musique! Whatever that means in French.