The country’s biggest celebration of African and Caribbean music and culture has announced its festival dates for this summer in Liverpool.
Following record breaking attendances last year, Africa Oyé will take over Sefton Park once again for two packed days of live music, dance, workshops, DJ stages, food stalls, traders and more.
The much-loved event will this year take place on 22 and 23 June 2024 with the festival running from 12:30pm to 9:30pm both days.
Beginning over three decades ago in 1992 as a series of shows in the city centre, the Africa Oyé Festival has evolved into one of Liverpool’s most beloved annual events, attracting artists and attendees from across the world.
With the infrastructure costs of the festival rising more and more each year however, organisers have once again faced an uphill battle to keep the event free and open to all for 2024.
Paul Duhaney, Artistic Director of Africa Oyé, said: “This is the people’s festival and the whole dynamic of the event would change if we had to start charging. We’ll fight for as long as we can to make sure that doesn’t happen. We’re currently looking at private sponsorship to cover the rising costs to support our funders at Arts Council England and Liverpool City Council. And of course as a charity, every donation and merchandise sale from the public goes a long way so please do keep supporting if you want us to remain free.”
The Oyé Active Zone on site will once again be hosted by Liverpool’s world dance charity Movema, and audiences can expect the usual array of multi-arts workshops across the whole weekend, for all ages and abilities. The increasingly-popular DJ stages Trenchtown and Freetown are also confirmed to return with a line-up of local selectors and MCs to be announced later in the spring.
The first of the main stage artists will be revealed next month and young local artists who applied to play the festival will soon find out whether they made it onto this year’s Oyé Introduces programme, which sees up-and-coming North West talent showcased on the line-up alongside the international heavyweights.
Oyé’s ethos of being ‘free and open to all’ also means that the popular Access Tent, on-stage British Sign Language translators and the Accessible Viewing Platform will all return for this year’s festival.
Africa Oyé are also celebrating a nomination for the People’s Choice Prize at the LCR Culture and Creativity Awards for the second year running, with voting open to the public now until 5pm on Monday 5th February.
This year’s Africa Oyé festival will take place on 22 & 23 June 2023, in Liverpool’s Sefton Park from 12:30pm til 9:30pm both days and entrance is FREE.