Abdul Karim (left) and Dennis inspects the live broadcasting room for RWMF at Sarawak Cultural Village. – Photo by Roystein Emmor
KUCHING (June 16): All preparations are in place for the Rainforest World Music Festival (RWMF) 2022 to finally be held at Sarawak Cultural Village this weekend (June 17 to 19).
With the theme ‘25th Legendary Rainforest Celebration’, Sarawak Tourism Board (STB) said performers from China, Australia, India, Singapore, Indonesia, Canada, Estonia, Italy, Japan, Madagascar, the United States of America and Vietnam will be featured during the three-day musical event.
Sarawak Minister of Tourism, Creative Industry and Performing Arts Dato Sri Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah said this year will witness the musical festival being held in both physical and online platform for the first time.
“I am just as excited as any of you here today and this Rainforest World Music Festival is an international event that all Sarawakians are proud of,” he said at a press conference before a walk-about at Sarawak Cultural Village to inspect the preparation works yesterday.
Abdul Karim said he had recently returned from Frankfurt, Germany last week and even the European press was looking forward for the musical festival to take place physically, after two years of hiatus.
“From the response in Germany, we can see how big the impact of the festival on music lovers all over the world is, even though we are not expecting the crowd to be as big as before (due to Covid-19 pandemic).”
Abdul Karim said the organiser was on track to record about 12,000 tickets sold for the three-day musical fiesta, with over 10,000 tickets taken up so far. The sales are expected to pick up with one day remaining before the festival finally takes place.
He also assured that enforcement agencies and medical personnel will be stationed at the venue to safeguard the safety of revellers.
When asked on the occupancy rate of hotels in Kuching, the minister said the musical festival is being held coincidentally with the triennial general meeting of Parti Pesaka Bumiputera Bersatu (PBB) in the same period but he believed there would be enough accommodations around the city for visitors to stay.
“From last week onwards, we have events almost every weekend and we just had our Spartan Race last week with about 2,000 athletes participating. Next week, we have the Borneo Jazz Festival and its going to be like this until the end of the year.”
Abdul Karim said the opening of economic activities with the Covid-19 pandemic subsiding now had augured well for the businesses of hotel and restaurant industries.
Sacofa Sdn Bhd has been tasked with ensuring reliable mobile connectivity during the three-day festival for visitors, as well as making sure the smooth running of the festival’s live broadcasting for online viewers.
This year’s RWMF will also be launching its new green initiative, named ‘ecoGreenPlanet programme’, whereby RM10 from the RM25 online ticket sold each will go towards planting a mangrove tree after the festival. About 4,500 mangrove trees had been secured thus far.
In line with the responsible tourism agenda, STB is collaborating with Canard Media Sdn Bhd to install 10 water stations throughout the venue and discourage the purchase of single-use water bottles.
STB also said food waste from the festival will be converted into bio-protein for fertiliser and animal feed for local farmers by a Kuching-based social enterprise WormingUp.
Another initiative named ‘Matter out of Place (Moop)’ will see patrols keeping the festival site in pristine and clean condition by working together with festival-goers to clear-up the venue at the end of the daily events.
The public are also encouraged to take the shuttle bus services provided at three pick-up points in downtown Kuching; namely The Hills Shopping Mall, Riverside Majestic Hotel Astana Wing and Plaza Merdeka.
The bus shuttle service from Kuching to Damai Central car park area near Sarawak Cultural Village will run between 9am and 8pm, and for those returning to the city from the village, the trip from Damai Central car park starts from 9.30am until 12.30am.
For further enquires, the public can visit RWMF’s official website at rwmf.net or its official Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages.
RWMF event organiser is Place Borneo.
Among those in attendance were STB chairman Dennis Ngau, chief executive officer Sharzede Salleh Askor, festival curator Gracie Geikie and Sarawak Economic Development Corporation general manager Abdul Hadi Abdul Kadir.
from Borneo Post Online https://bit.ly/3MQrBPv
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