Lake of Stars Announces Host Venue and First Sponsor

Lake of Stars will return to the incredible Sunbird Nkopola Lodge this September for the 10^th edition of the award winning arts event, rated amongst the top festivals in Africa by CNN and Metro. 

The partnership between Sunbird and LOS began in 2008 when the event took place at Livingstonia Beach.  Nkopola Lodge is located in the southern lakeshore area near the town of Mangochi with a good range of accommodation in the area from on-site camping to beachside hotels. Contact the festival direct for bookings festivaltravel@lakeofstars.org
 

The festival will comprise of three performance areas: Village, Beach and Lake. Music, theatre, poetry, film, comedy, literature and dance will all feature in the line-up with more acts to be announced in the next few weeks. A new edition for this year will be a series of talks covering topics such as technology, the creative industries and science. There will be a food market plus vendor stalls selling local arts and crafts. Lilongwe’s La Galleria will operate a pop-up art gallery on site to cater for all visual arts fans.

There is a big family focus at Lake of Stars with children aged 12 or under allowed in for free.  There will be a children’s programme of activities including storytelling, drumming workshops, jumping castles and facepainting.  As well as the main festival at Nkopola Lodge there is the Outreach Festival that takes place on the Saturday afternoon in neighboring Chipoka Village.  Activities will include acoustic performances and a football tournament.

The Star Bar will be back, better than ever, in its usual position near the main performance area: Lake Stage.  Expect friendly bar staff, sugarcane juice cocktails, and some long nights enjoying music and culture from Malawi and around the World.

UK and African festival directors will be attending the festival to scout for Malawian talent for their events in 2015.  Following on from the success of City of Stars 2013 that saw Peter Mawanga booked by Celtic Connections for a Glasgow performance in January this year, LOS will continue to bring festival bookers to Malawi to help other artists progress their international careers.

We’re proud to confirm that Proflight Zambia are on-board as our first sponsors of the festival.  Proflight Zambia are the leading regional airline with frequent connections to Lilongwe, Victoria Falls and Dar-es-Salaam from their Lusaka hub.  Proflight will bring our Zambian brothers and sisters to enjoy some Malawian hospitality.  Zambian superstars will fly Proflight to perform on Lake Malawi this September.

Proflight’s Captain Phil Lemba had this to say about the partnership:

‘Proflight Zambia shares the musical passions and spirit of the Lake of Stars and is delighted to be partnering with them to bring together fans and performers for what promises to be a high-flying event for us all to remember.’