It’s all systems go for Rage festivals at the coast

It’s all systems go for the 2021 Ballito Rage festival, with strict safety measures and protocols in place to avoid a “superspreader” event.

CEO of the Rage Festival group, Greg Walsh, said the organisers had all the necessary approvals from the municipality, local police, fire and traffic departments and the department of health.

The organisers are working with a task team including five people from the provincial health department, two local representatives from the World Health Organisation and a team from the National Institute for Communicable Diseases.

“It’s definitely a collaborative effort and in terms of the safety measures it’s a fully vaccinated event — all staff and guests have to be fully vaccinated and we have a full on-site testing solution,” he said.

The event will be held ahead of a potential fourth wave of Covid-19. Walsh acknowledged there were concerns about a resurgence of the virus, as happened last year.

“It’s a little bit like déjà vu because a year ago there was a very similar setting, in November everyone was living, going out and having entertainment and parties were happening, and then a month later we moved very quickly from 1,000 cases a day to 20,000 a day, so it’s very difficult to understand how the virus works.”

Last year’s post-matric event in Ballito was identified as a superspreader after nearly 1,000 cases of Covid-19 were linked to it.

TimesLIVE reported that at least two revellers who attended the Matric Rage in Ballito had tested positive for Covid-19 before the event.

“It’s definitely a fear, it’s a concern. We are only going to keep going ahead with the event if it’s safe to do so. It’s been great having such support from the KwaZulu-Natal department of health this year, so every decision we take is a joint decision that’s based on data that they have got. It’s based on protocols that we are proposing, it’s a collaborative effort,” he said.

Walsh said the festival would provide matrics with a safe place to celebrate.

“We know that the matrics, regardless of our festival, are going to go out and celebrate as soon as their exams end. We feel a duty of care to have a safe environment to do that. Our festival, with the fully vaccinated requirement, with all the testing, with all the sanitising efforts, with all the high-quality entertainment, we know that is the best environment [in which] to do it,” he said.

Plett Rage founder Ronen Klugman said the event had been well received by the community and they would make vaccines mandatory for those attending.

“Our numbers this year, we are not looking at a normal rage, we are going to be doing about 40%. We have presented to everyone our Covid-19 plans, we have met with the taxi association which is going to help us with transport,” he said.

He said they were going all out to ensure the event was safe.

“We are excited about it and thankfully the numbers are low and we hope it stays that way,” he said.

Ballito Rage is being held from November 30 to December 6. Plett Rage dates are December 3 to 7.

TimesLIVE