South Africans love many things: music, food and celebrating. This is precisely why media man Sarel du Plessis and ex-preacher Noël Schreuder launched Feeste.net, a platform where festivals and shows can be advertised.
Although Sarel and Noël’s friendship and partnership stand firm today in their project to make festivals as accessible as possible for Jan Alleman, their paths already crossed decades ago.
These two entrepreneurs met behind the desks of Port Natal High School in Durban. Their paths crossed again in the Dromedaris men’s dormitory, where they lodged during their studies at the University of Johannesburg (at the time the Rand Afrikaans University, or RAU).
In those years, these two dormitory friends performed as DJs at student parties to pocket an extra penny or two. They were also at the helm of Dromedaris’ own residence newspaper, the Mishorning. They were also keen photographers who even had their own darkroom to develop their photos.
“We have come a long way together. Although we parted ways a bit after that, we got back together as retirees. We realized that we worked well together and did nice things together,” said Noël in RNews’s studio.
“You can see it coming from the DJ– and sock-sock days off,” he joked.
In his career, which spans decades, Sarel has worked at organizations including Times Media, the Republican Press, Media24, Pretoria FM and GrootFM.
It was precisely during his time at Media24, where he as the CEO of Report and Sunday newspapers, where he initially got the idea for a platform like Feeste.net.
He already realized in those years, in 2009 and 2010, that there are around 600 festivals a year in South Africa, and that there is nowhere where Jan Alleman can comfortably locate all these festivals and shows. Today, more than a decade later, it is still a huge challenge for people to know which events are happening where and when.
“Noël and I put our heads together a year and a half ago to explore new business opportunities. We wondered if there was something that would really have an impact on our country’s people,” says Sarel.
“Once again I realized that there is nowhere where festivals, shows and events are advertised. Most of the stuff appears on Facebook, but the way it works on Facebook, it disappears afterwards as people upload new stuff.”
With this struggle to find a home for all South African festivals, shows and events, Feeste.net was born. Since this website was launched in May this year, hundreds of festivals and shows have already been advertised on it.
Visitors to the website now have the opportunity to find out in one convenient place which festivals will soon take place in or near their towns and which artists will soon be performing near them.
- Visit Feste.net for more information.
- Listen above to a full audio interview with Noel Schreuder and Sarel du Plessis.
