Bringing the Fire: Bushfire 2019
Campsite! The road was clogged with cars. Stalls selling hot maize packets had sprung up around the entrance to the festival, and taxi drivers leant out the windows yelling at each other. Four of us were crammed into a small cab with our camping supplies and grocery bags. The Bushfire Music Festival is one of the largest music festivals in Southern Africa and it attracts an estimated 20,000 people each year over its three-day runtime. It’s located at an eclectic, sprawling venue called House on Fire – a crazy mix-match of tiki torches, intimate amphitheatres, extensive fields, and secluded bars in the forest. Over the week preceding the festival, construction workers built fences and erected market places and stages over the grounds, preparing for the deluge of festival-goers. A number of my friends and I were camping at the venue, and it was a one and half hour mess trying to find our campsite. First, our taxi dropped us at the main entran