By Motšelisi Sekonyela

MASERU

The organisers of Lesotho’s biggest annual braai festival, the Maletsunyane Braai Festival on February 21 announced that they are gearing up in anticipation of the three-day festival in November.

One of the festival organisers, Tichere Pule said this year the festival will commence on November 24 and end of November 26.

Pule said the current preparations are administrative work that includes updating the festival website by a team of dedicated experts to display up-to-date and relevant information that the clients need, including recent pictures from the last festival.

The first batch of tickets will be sold from March 3 as the limited early bird tickets. The sale of tickets will take place on the festival website at https://www.maletsunyanebraaifest.co.ls as well as the Mpesa ticketing platform.

Pule says this year the festival will put more emphasis on its “braai” part of the name as opposed to the past years where there was not that much braaing going on, making the event look more like a music festival instead of a braai festival.

He said they will do this by making different kinds of braaing meat available for their clients. Of this, Pule said they have plans on sourcing game meat as well and allowing for a meat tasting session where all attendants can have a taste of all the local and exotic meat variety.

Apart from providing meat, the organisers will also ensure that each and every tent has a braai stand outside of it.

The first Maletsunyane braai festival was in 2016. The event had to pause from 2021 to 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. It resumed again in 2022.  Pule said they have come a long way since the first festival and keep getting better each year.

For successful execution of the festival, some of the local businesses that the braai festival team works with include a logistics company, Kayfam Transport that sets aside their trucks for the whole festival week to transport material like camping gear.

Founder of Kayfam Transport, Chaka Khojane said being a logistics partner for the Maletsunyane braai festival has done a lot of good for his business as it gives them visibility and exposes them to potential clients.

Khojane said his company is a rental for trucks and double cab bakkies, with its clients as non-profit organisations.

In conclusion, Pule said the putting together of this event is pricy, therefore they call onto more companies and organisations to collaborate with them and to sponsor the event so as to keep giving the clients the best experience of the festival.

Pule urged the public to look out for ticket promotions and giveaways leading to the festival.