About

Lake of Stars is an award winning festival that takes place in the warm heart of Africa on the palm fringed shores of the continent’s third largest lake and a year round project working in the UK to promote arts, travel and development.

Our mission: To promote Malawian arts and tourism through international interaction and exposure.

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Impact facts

• 90 Artists performed from across the arts in 2010 unique collaborations were performed and connections made.
  
  
• The festival has exposed over 200 million people to Malawi through its media coverage, notably on global news networks (BB, CNN) and online.
  
  
• Q Magazine the UK’s leading music magazine dubbed Lake of Stars: ‘Simply the finest festival in the world’.
  
  
• The festival is Malawi’s number one tourist event of the year it has been contributing to the development of tourism and the arts in Malawi since 2004.
  
  
• In 2010 the festival generated $1,000,000 of local spend with around a third being in foreign currency.
  
  
• 100 plus local people were employed and a 1000+ hotel beds were slept in providing a major boost to local families and businesses in 2010 alone.
  
  
• The new Development Village area in the festival put NGO’s, the private sector and charities into a space together to spread awareness of their activities and engage with the public.
  
  
• 3000+ people came to the 2010 festival, with a majority being Malawian residents but also a healthy mix of regional and international travellers attracted to the unique event.
  
  
• The festival provides a positive story for Malawi and Africa and its key role in countering prevailing negative media messages about the continent is recognised through Lake of Stars being asked by Comic Relief to join their new See Africa Differently advisory group.

Background

Will Jameson set up the event in 2004 to encourage international tourism to Malawi. Lake of Stars takes inspiration from events like Live Aid, WOMAD and Glastonbury . The difference is that LOS uses arts-tourism to generate revenue and exposure for Malawi.

The festival was borne from a desire to raise money for a developing economy, help promote Malawi as a tourist destination and expose Malawian artists to international crowds. Set on the shimmering, palm-fringed shores of Lake Malawi International and African artists gather for a musical, social and cultural exchange unlike anything you will have seen before. For many the festival is the focal point of travelling around this beautiful country, forming part of an itinerary spanning what Malawi has to offer.

Will Jameson first visited Malawi in 1998 when he worked in Dwangwa as a volunteer with the Wildlife Society for 6 months. During that time he travelled to Zimbabwe, Zambia and Mozambique. On returning to England Will took with him a souvenir – an empty carton of ‘Chibuku Shake Shake’ beer. Half way through university at Liverpool John Moores he decided to start a clubnight with friends Damo Jones, Charlene McDaid and Rich McGinnis. They named the night after the Malawian beer and went on to win Best UK Club in the Mixmag Awards in 2004.

It was in this same year that Will launched the first Lake of Stars Festival headlined by Chibuku favourite, Groove Armada’s Andy Cato . The festival attracted dozens of people from the UK and hundreds attended from all over Malawi and Southern Africa . It won the Malawi Tourism Award in its first year and is now one of the highlights of the international festival calendar.

Tourism for development

The Malawi government has recognised the part that tourism can play in the country’s economy.

‘….we have analysed the economy and looked at where there is the largest potential [for development] and we believe that tourism will play a vital role.’ (Forbes Report).

‘The development of the tourism industry as a major foreign exchange earner is one of the Malawi government’s key objectives.’ (SADC report)

‘More recently, tourism has been identified by the Government as possessing the potential to assist in economic and social development in the country, particularly through employment creation and in the generation of much needed foreign exchange.’ (Strategic Tourism Development Plan: UNDP/WTO)

Creative industries and development

We strongly believe that arts and culture are key to the development of people and place. More on this topic.:

'Support for creative industries offers significant potential for economic growth'.
Report from the Commonwealth Foundation

'This report provides empirical evidence that the creative industries are among the most dynamic emerging sectors in world trade'.
UN Creative Economy Report