The Afro Nation festival gathered more than 40,000 people in its third edition, held between Wednesday and Friday, in Praia da Rocha, in Portimão, and already has a return scheduled for 2024, confirmed today the organization.
“Since Afro Nation’s legendary debut event in Portugal in 2019, which was attended by 20,000 people, the festival has more than doubled in size in its third edition this year,” the event organizers highlighted in a statement.
This week, “more than 40,000 fans from all over the world” gathered at Praia da Rocha, in Portimão, in the Faro district, “for the biggest Afro Nation festival ever, celebrating the sounds of ‘afrobeats’ and ‘amapiano’,” the same source said.
This number, with visitors coming from about 140 countries, exceeds the turnout of about 35,000 people recorded at the second edition in 2022. In 2020 and 2021, the festival was not held, due to restrictions imposed because of the covid-19 pandemic.
On the first day of this year’s event, Tiago Castelo Branco, executive director of MOT, one of the partner companies organizing Afro Nation, acknowledged to Lusa that this festival is “designed for a type of client that is mostly foreign” and revealed that “more than 90% of the public comes from abroad, and to the Algarve on purpose.
Between Wednesday and Friday, concerts by Burna Boy, Little Simz, Wizkid, 50 Cent, Booba, and Davido captured the spotlight from a lineup of more than 50 artists.
Since its inception, Afro Nation has expanded across three continents, with premieres in Miami and Detroit in the United States, and a previously announced extension in Nigeria.
“With the incredible rise of so many African artists and with new African popular music genres exploding globally in recent years, Afro Nation is at the center of it all and stands out as the greatest event to experience the culture and all these artists together in a unifying celebration,” the organization stressed.
Given this “resounding success”, it has been confirmed that the fourth edition of Afro Nation will take place in Praia da Rocha, in Portimão, in 2024.
