I attended the Hermanus FynArts AGM at The Windsor Hotel tonight and was really pleased with the amount of tour buses parked at the hotel.  This indication of high visitor numbers is music to any destination marketer and I’m not exempt.  Totally distracted this was just a bye the bye consideration as I was heading to a condense and to-the-point meeting of an annual festival that has taught me much about art appreciation and South African artists.

Hermanus FynArts is five years old and this is reason enough to celebrate. The fact that 2018 brought a record number of 4775 visitors to exhibitions and sold a record number of 7776 tickets with an increased turnover of 12% in addition to the opening of their very own gallery are just… absolutely commendable.  65% of attendees came from the Cape Whale Coast while there was an increase from 4% to 6% of visitors from the Garden Route .  The festival also did well on digital platforms with their Facebook page increasing with 1002 likes, instagram followers trebling and twitter growing with 350 followers.  All good news especially if you consider that Newsclip Media Monitoring puts the FynArts promotional value at R12 670 670 for the year. A proud achievement for festival director Mary Faure and the able Chantel Louskitt who are the festival faces.

The 2019 Hermanus FynArts programme is 80% complete and the line-up includes Charl du Plessis, a well known beach calligrapher whom I am guessing is Andrew van der Merwe and Bongani Kubheka who recently won first prize in the ATKV’s Muziqanto.  Here we go again with a fine line-up for June 2019.