Fest’Napuan2006 took place from the 5th until the 8th of October – Thursday the 5th was Constitution Day, a public holiday.
As usual, Thursday was local string band night, Friday and Saturday featured electrified “pop” music, including all overseas acts, and Sunday was the ‘Zion Fest’ featuring Christian music.
Six artists from outside Vanuatu participated this year: Papua New Guinea’s “Telek”, New Caledonia’s “Jeanne Hue”, Fiji’s “Kulture”, the Solomon Islands’ “Saba”, Australia’s “Diafrix” and New Zealand's "Inta-ailandas".
Locally, 42 string bands (Thursday night), 13 "pop" bands (Friday and Saturday nights) and 21 Christian acts (Sunday) participated.
For the third successive year ABC’s Radio Australia broadcast the event live to the region. SBS Radio and RFO Television also covered the event for Australian radio and regional French TV respectively. Radio Vanuatu broadcast the event live nationally and Television Blong Vanuatu recorded the event for eventual production of a DVD.
The Fest’Napuan is a free event for the public and all funds are raised through corporate sponsorship, selling of food-and-kava stalls to the public and other fundraising efforts. In terms of numbers of people attending, the annual four-day Fest’Napuan outdoor music concert is the biggest event of any kind in Vanuatu.
The Fest’Napuan is a free event for the public and all funds are raised through corporate sponsorship, selling of food-and-kava stalls to the public and other fundraising efforts
Major sponsors of this year's Fest'Napuan were:
- Air Vanuatu
- UNELCO
- Telecom Vanuatu Limited
- the Australian High Commission
- the New Zealand High Commission
- Alliance Francaise Vanuatu
- Alliance Francaise Fiji
- Cooperation Regionale Nouvelle-Caledonie
- Vanuatu Cultural Centre
- Trader Vics
- TRA Sandalwood
See this year's PROGRAM
Fest’Napuan – History
The first Fest’Napuan was organised in 1996 by the Vanuatu Cultural Centre to commemorate the second National Day of Culture - 17th November – which had been officially declared by the Government the previous year to celebrate the opening of the new National Museum building on that date in 1995. Fest’Napuan 1996 was staged in front of the National Museum building, in the purpose-built amphitheatre of the National Cultural Complex, which has now become the event’s home.
The name ‘Fest’Napuan’ is a combination of two words, the word ‘festival’ from English and French, and the word ‘napuan’ from one of the languages of the island of Tanna, which means music and dance. The Fest’Napuan aims to promote the development of contemporary music in Vanuatu by:
· providing young people in music groups with the chance to perform in front of a large audience and access to greater public exposure;
· providing young people in music groups and aspiring musicians with exposure to other bands and other types of music;
· encouraging Government and private sponsors to recognise and support Vanuatu’s contemporary musicians;
· providing two nights of free top-quality musical entertainment for the people of Port Vila (and the rest of the country) performed by a broad cross-section of local groups and special overseas acts.
The Fest’Napuan is organised by its own committee, all of whom are volunteers. Each year, the committee has comprised mostly of young people, many of who are musicians themselves and many of whom are unemployed. Their participation in the organising committee provides them with skills and experience in office management, administration, logistics and organisation that greatly improves their prospects for later employment.
Now in its eleventh year (2006), the Fest’Napuan is recognised nationally as the premier cultural event of the year. Audience numbers grow each year (last year’s estimate was over 30,000 people over the four days) and include increasing numbers of people coming in from the outer islands especially for the event. The Fest’Napuan is also gaining increasing recognition regionally, with bands from New Caledonia, the Solomon Islands, the Fiji Islands, West Papua, Rapa Nui (Easter Island), Papua New Guinea, Australia and New Zealand having participated to date. In 2004, for the first time, Australia’s ABC network recorded and broadcast the event live across the region on Radio Australia.
