2010 Knysna Oyster Festival attendance exceeds expectations

Organisers of this year’s Pick n Pay Knysna Oyster Festival, which finished recently, say that attendance figures at the festival exceeded expectations. “When we looked at the dates for this year’s festival we were concerned because they fell within the last 10 days of the 2010 FIFA World Cup,” said Festival Manager Nicci Rousseau-Schmidt. “We were unsure how this would affect attendance at the festival. However, we’re delighted that numbers were higher than expected and the success of the festival does not seem to have been affected by what was going on in the rest of the country.” Rousseau-Schmidt said that The Pick n Pay Weekend Argus Knysna Cycle Tour was 7% up on last year while the Pick n Pay Cape Times Forest Marathon reported the same numbers. “What’s very pleasing is that the numbers were up for all the mid-week sports events including the Salomon Featherbed Trail Run presented by Petzl and the Duesouth XTERRA presented by Rehydrat®.” Spokesman for Magnetic South, Chris Crewdson, said that the Salomon Featherbed Trail Run has grown enormously. “In 2008 we introduced the event with one run, last year we introduced a second run, and this year we had three runs with over 600 runners registered.” CEO of Knysna Tourism, Shaun van Eck, said the growth in midweek events proved that people were staying longer in Knysna to enjoy more of the festival to the great benefit of all the local businesses. “The festival is all about boosting the economy in the winter months and we are extremely grateful to all our sponsors for making this possible, in particular our naming sponsor Pick n Pay.” Van Eck said that the new venue for the festival hub on Waterfront Drive had worked exceptionally well. “We’ve had lots of positive feedback from locals and visitors as well as event managers about the new venue and I certainly feel that it made the town a lot more festive and kept activities centralised. Leon Brown, one of the organisers of the Knysna Forest Marathon said that the new route in the forest was well received by the runners. “We were very happy with how the marathon went.” “The general consensus is that the festival was a major success and that events were extremely well coordinated. This is a great testament to all the loyal participants who return to Knysna year after year, as well as to the local people involved in organising the various festival events, many of whom are volunteers,” said van Eck.

 
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