South Africa Festivals and Celebrations

The quick answer

South Africa’s public holidays are unusual in how many of them commemorate a specific historical event rather than a season or a saint. Reading the list is a short course in the country’s twentieth century. Beyond them, the festival calendar concentrates in the southern summer.

Individual festival dates move and are announced locally, so this page describes what each is rather than pinning an edition that will be out of date.

The commemorative holidays

Human Rights Day — 21 March

Marks the Sharpeville massacre of 1960, when police opened fire on a crowd protesting the pass laws. The date was chosen deliberately: the country’s human rights day is the anniversary of their most notorious violation.

Freedom Day — 27 April

The anniversary of the 1994 election, the first in which all South Africans could vote. The founding date of the current republic in every sense that matters.

Youth Day — 16 June

Commemorates the Soweto uprising of 1976, when schoolchildren protesting the imposition of Afrikaans as a language of instruction were met with police gunfire. The events of that day are central to the Hector Pieterson Museum in Soweto.

Women’s Day — 9 August

Marks the 1956 march of some twenty thousand women on the Union Buildings in Pretoria against the pass laws.

Heritage Day — 24 September

A celebration of the country’s cultural diversity, and widely observed as a national braai day — an informal tradition that has become close to universal.

Day of Reconciliation — 16 December

A date that carried opposing meanings for different South African communities before 1994 and was deliberately reframed as a day of reconciliation. Its history is worth reading before you ask anyone about it.

Christmas and Easter are also public holidays and are major family occasions, and the December period is the country’s main holiday season.

Festivals

The Cape Town Minstrel Carnival

Held in early January — the Tweede Nuwe Jaar, the second new year — when troupes in bright satin parade through Cape Town with banjos and brass. It has roots in the city’s history of slavery, when the day after New Year was one of the few holidays granted, and it is one of the oldest continuous carnival traditions anywhere.

The national arts festival

South Africa’s principal performing arts festival takes over a small Eastern Cape city for around ten days each winter, with theater, dance, music and visual art across an official and a fringe program. It is a serious cultural event rather than a tourist one.

Music in the cities

Cape Town hosts a major international jazz festival, and both main cities have active calendars of music, film and food events through the summer. These are attended largely by South Africans, which is what makes them worth going to.

The winelands calendar

Harvest and wine festivals run through the Cape summer and autumn, from large public events to small estate open days. Easy to combine with a Cape Town stay.

What actually affects your week

• Public holidays close banks and government offices; lodges, parks and restaurants operate normally.
• Mid-December to mid-January fills the coast, the parks and the roads, and prices rise sharply.
• A festival can fill a small town’s accommodation entirely.
• If a public holiday falls on a Sunday, the Monday is generally a holiday too.

Common questions

Should I avoid the December holidays?

If you want space and value, yes. If you want the country at its most festive, that is when it is.

Can I attend a commemorative event?

Public commemorations are generally open. Go with someone who can explain what is being marked.

When are festival dates announced?

Locally, and often not far ahead. Ask us and we will find out for your dates rather than guess.

Seeing it on a LABUSA Travel journey

If you would like your trip to coincide with a particular occasion, tell us early. Several of these fill a town’s accommodation, and early is the only way to do it well.