The Definitive Guide to Living in the Capital
Cairo Arts & Culture
Find it

Colour Festival: Holi Festival at the Swiss Club in Cairo

07/09/2011
Colour Festival: Holi Festival at the Swiss Club in Cairo
Colour Festival: Holi Festival at the Swiss Club in Cairo
Arts & Culture
Zainab Magdy

Since the last Colour Festival in Cairo, attendees on Facebook have increased in number to over 16,000 users anticipating this fun and colourful festival on September 10th.

This is the second Colour Festival to take place at the Swiss Club in Cairo.  Holi is the name of the spring Hindu festival that takes place on the streets of India and other countries with Hindu populations. The tradition of the Colour Festival as a fun and creative idea has spread all over the world and of course; fun-loving Cairo has to have a taste of it.

While the original Hindu festival springs from spiritual origins and beliefs, celebrating and enjoying life are still at the heart of it. Next Saturday, the Colour Festival will begin at 10AM and will continue for a whole eight hours, offering many activities other than just splashing colours at each other.

‘The concept is to enjoy the day, similar to what happens in India,’ says Mohamad Adel, head of the Divas Team, the event's organisers. Last year, the team participated in the event and were inspired to help organise the 2011 festival.

‘We wanted to bring our own point of view to this festival this time,’ he explains, ‘So that people would not just splash colours, then get their pictures taken and leave.’

Along with supervisor Peter Gamal, Adel and the rest of Divas Team have created a full program for the Colour Festival on September 10th. Tickets are available for 50LE and include entrance to the Swiss Club, colour packets for the splashing and a foam bottle. Extra colour packets and foam bottles, along with snacks and meals from the Swiss Club restaurant, will be available for sale once you get inside.

Music will be playing all day with a mix of Indian, House, Techno and other music to add to the festivity of the event. As it’s bound to be a long and exhausting day, the Divas Team have arranged music tracks to elevate the mood and to slow the pace down at the right time so that the guests have a chance to catch their breath. Taxi Band will also be playing at around 2PM. Berwaz, the Street Studio Project, will take quality photos of the whole day, capturing group portraits and other stills of the event.

In addition to all that, the festival offers more than just four extra hours of ecstatic colour splashing. There will an Indian snake show, Indian dancing, water fights, foam fights and other creative activities.

There are also three competitions, the first of which is for the most colourful guy or girl, so that people make an effort to get all splashed with as many colours as they can. The second competition is 'Show Your Colours'’, which will choose the girl and guy of the day that is covered entirely in one colour. The third competition is a raffle for a brand-new Blackberry, to be drawn from the serial numbers of the sold tickets; so hold onto your tickets when you pass the gates.

Unfortunately, tickets for the September 10th event are now sold out, but the good news is that Divas Team is already organizing another Colour Festival in October. The date has not been announced yet but will be listed soon on their Facebook page with information on where to buy the tickets.

Upcoming Arts & Culture Events
Cairo Mediterranean Literary Festival: Simonetta Agnello Hornby at Italian Cultural Institute
As part of the Cairo Mediterranean Literary Festival, accidental writer Simonetta Agnello Hornby will host an intriguing sounding lecture under the title of ‘Food, Body and Senses in Literature’ at the Italian Cultural Institute. Attendance is free.
Cairo Mediterranean Literary Festival: Film Screenings at BEBA
As part of the Cairo Mediterranean Literary Festival, BEBA will host a screening of  'In: the lost and found' by Lana Nasser, followed by the screening of Egyptian short films '04:02:2011' by Mahmoud Farag and 'Payback' by Omar Khaled will take place. Finally, there will be the screening of 'Gordos' by Daniel Sanchez Arevalo. Attendance is free.
Cairo Mediterranean Literary Festival: 'The Bod'y Memory' by Marwa Adel at Institut Francais d'Égypte au Caire
As part of the Cairo Mediterranean Literary Festival, Marwa Adel's exhibition explores how every trauma, joy and memory is ingrained in our bodies. Attendance is free.
Other Arts & Culture Features
Having adopted a theme in each of its first two editions, this year’s Cairo Mediterranean Literary Festival looks at the relationship between literature and the body. Although parallels are difficult to immediately find, the human form has forever been celebrated, lamented, caricatured and portraye...
Featuring renowned international artists to shaaby MCs and regional talents, the Downtown Contemporary Arts Festival, better known as D-CAF, is entering its final week.The festival is spread over a number of venues in Downtown Cairo, including the Townhouse Gallery, Radio Theatre, AUC’s Greek campu...
Nermine Hammam is anything but simple. Almost a work of art in herself, she walks around carrying more than what the untrained eye will see; she is a compilation of her whole life’s experiences. As complex and intricate as she inherently is though, there is also an undeniable warmth that draws you ...
Sign Up for The 360 Newsletter!
First Name
Last Name
Email