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The Koroga Festival ©Susan Wong

The Koroga Festival ©Susan Wong

The Koroga festival went down on Sunday April 13th at the Arboretum Gardens and was mostly a success. The weather behaved and the music was well worth the time. Koroga Festival is geared to be a bimonthly music event and is brought to you by Capital FM. Here is the good and not so good from the debut event.

The Good

  1. The location – I’m a huge fan of Arboretum. It’s serene and perfect for an outdoorsy event like Koroga. It’s also not too far from town so it’s on the convenient side.
  2. The music – It’s common knowledge that Dela and Neema can sing their socks off. They did not disappoint. Both their sets were amazing and they had the crowd on their feet. The headliners ‘Freshly Ground’ brought the house down with their set that unbelievably was a solid two hours. They even came back on stage for an encore. As a huge fan of theirs, I was utterly thrilled by them.
  3. The ambience – It was refreshing to not see teenagers throwing up or blacking out on the grass. The crowd was mostly a mature one and the kids there were with their parents. The place was also not too packed and there was plenty of room to get up and dance.

The Not So Good

  1. The seating arrangements – There was a tent. Which is great. There were however, chairs as well. This was problematic as some people got the few chairs available and the rest of us had to seat on the ground. That’s not a big deal except those with chairs were blocking those without. We had to go squeeze ourselves at the front so we could at least see the stage. For the next one, they need to either elevate the stage or get rid of the chairs all together.
  2. The food situation – The event has a NO BYOB policy. It seems a lot of people didn’t get the memo and arrived with their picnic baskets in hand only to be told they had to return them to the car. There was a food tent there that featured pricy food. At least it was delicious but pricy nonetheless. Thankfully, drinks were regular prices.
  3. The exit strategy – I love that they ended on time. It was already dark at 7pm though and we could barely see as we walked down to the parking which was a little out of the way. It was muddy from the downpour the night before and it was slippy slidy to and from the car park. They should put up some lighting to make it easier for people to navigate their way to the parking.

All in all, the event was a good one.

My two best moments of the event were

  1. When Freshly Ground sang ‘I’d like’ and the crowd went all emotional singing along, ‘’Wu-wo-oh-oh wo-oh-oh wo-ohh!” It was electrifying.
  2. When Freshly Ground sang ‘Wakawaka’ and everyone sang along. It brought back memories of the 2010 world cup and reminded us of the one coming up this year.

Obviously, I am a huge fan of Freshly Ground. I can’t wait for the next Koroga Festival. I’m definitely curious about who the headliner will be. It’s in June and I have a feeling it’s going to be awesome.