To help with crowd control this year, Black Labone has introduced a system where patrons can apply for a free ticket.
Despite the City of Tshwane Emergency Service Department’s alert of severe thunderstorms throughout the day on Thursday, the Black Labone music festival, celebrating its eighth anniversary, will still take place.
“We did get the information like everyone else about the severe thunderstorms. We’ve been constantly monitoring the weather to see what’s going on with the rain,” Black Labone organiser and co-founder Izah told The Citizen on Thursday.
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City of Tshwane’s alert
On Wednesday, the City of Tshwane Emergency Service Department warned that there would be severe thunderstorms in the capital city and called for the community to remain alert.
“The severe thunderstorms are expected to persist from about 00:00 until about 21:59 on Thursday, 7 August 2025, with 60 percent chance of rain occurring in Tshwane,” read the statement by the City of Tshwane Emergency Service Department.
Black Labone is an art movement in Tshwane, hosted every Thursday. It celebrates its eighth anniversary on Thursday through its annual ‘Earth Day’ celebration.
“We did make some adjustments with the stages accordingly so that all of the stages are sheltered and basically moving closer to the theatre and setting up the stages in covered areas,” said Izah.
Black Labone has been hosted at the State Theatre since November 2023 and has been hosted in a few other event spaces around the city of Tshwane since its inception.
ALSO READ: Annual report: How weekly festival Black Labone saved the State Theatre [VIDEO]
Black Labone in numbers
Black Labone is an abode for creatives of all kinds, mainly musicians who hail from around Tshwane, but those from distant lands also call it home.
Its Earth Day celebrations are defined by its extensive lineup of performances and multiple stages that feature a variety of artists. Each Thursday, Black Labone attracts between 500 and 1 000 people. It is a free entry event.
Black Labone’s attraction to big numbers was highlighted in the Annual Report on the South African State Theatre’s (SAST) 2023/2024 Financial Year.
The report explicitly showed how the theatre benefited from housing Black Labone.
In terms of revenue generation, the report said that while the annual revenue target for ticket sales and theatre rental revenue was not achieved, the revenue received was significant at R7 049 935.
The Parking garage revenue was R8 018 121 and Front of House revenue was R3 468 826.
“Both significantly overachieved their annual targets by 78% which may be attributed to the significantly higher audience attendance recorded during the year, which directly supports both revenue streams.
“In particular the new partnership production, Black Labone, has attracted a large number of audiences which contributed to the overachievement,” read the report on the theatre’s Front of House revenue.
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Black Labone’s Earth Day celebration
To help with crowd control this year, Black Labone has introduced a system where patrons can apply for a free ticket.
“It’s also good for the safety, being well aware of who is inside. We can account for the number of people and also for the type of people we have as well. Understanding the demographics helps us design the festival better, knowing how many young people are here, how many elderly people are here,” shared Izah.
“It’s much faster… we’re going into digitising the festival in the sense that now, instead people manually writing down their names constantly when they come. This is more like a reservation process, where a person can reserve a space for themselves.
“This was a pilot and over a space of like three or four days, 2 000 people reserved their space.”
“We’re also expecting some newcomers. There were a number of people that were excited enough to come through even yesterday and see the space.”
Izah said last year’s Earth Day celebrations attracted about 3 000 people. “This year, a projection from the staff and team is 5 000 people that will attend.”
Black Labone tends to introduce new elements to the festival with each Earth Day celebration.
The festival’s second stage, known as the Annexe stage, was first introduced four years ago when the festival was celebrating its fourth anniversary.
“Now this year, what is quite interesting is what we’re introducing is the Underground Silent Party where we have different selectors [DJs] that get to play [DJ sets] in the silent party. All the music is played through headphones instead of speakers. They [headphones] have multiple frequencies that they can switch between different players and different genres,” shared Izah.
They did a trial run of the silent party a few months ago with 50 headphones for patrons. “It was a huge success, we had 50 headphones, and we’ve also doubled that, now we have 100 headphones.”
This year’s Earth Day celebrations will feature four stages. “The team is ready, excited, and things are moving. The festival has started already,” Izah said.
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