A highlight of the season in Cape Town, the Parade features all the city colors, in music, floats, costumes, peoples.

Genre: Performance, Festival

Venue: Fanwalk, Green Point Track, Cape Town, South Africa

Hosts & Sponsors: The City of Cape Town and several minstrel associations, such as the Cape Town Minstrel Carnival Association and the Kaapse Klopse Karnival Association, among others.

Performers: Over 13,000 minstrels troupes developed through associations such as the Cape Town Minstrel Carnival Association and the Kaapse Klopse Karnival Association, among others.

Description: Previously known as the Minstrel Carnival, Voorsmaakie and Tweede Nuwe Jaar (“Second New Year”), as well as Kaapse Klopse (“Kaapse Afrikaans Clubs”), the Cape Town Street Parade builds on a long tradition dating back to 1890, with complicated social roots in the colonial era in Cape Town. The parade has since developed into a celebration of history, freedom, and contemporary culture, where over 13,000 minstrel troupes bring the city streets to life garbed in bright colors, carrying colourful umbrellas or playing an array of musical instruments. The recent renaming seeks to specifically unify the people of the Western Cape, and also involve the most vulnerable on the Cape Flats, through opportunities for youth and cultural development and employment creation. There is, of course, partying conducted by townspeople and visitors alike, both during and after the parade.

For more information, see an information site here.