With the move to Fountains Valley in Pretoria two years ago, OppiKoppi took bold steps in creating a more progressive and dance- orientated festival catering for a younger, more open-minded and cross-cultural city audience. This city edition is quickly developing a character all its own, shying away from the wild antics of its sister festival held in August in the Bushveld. 

Now that the dust has settled after August, the OK crew can continue to build this new trend with the Pretoria leg being moved later, to 28, 29 November. 
This falls in perfect time for an end of the year celebration in the week that varsities and schools break up for the December holidays.

The chief obstacle at this time of year is of course, the weather and the probability of rain. Coupled with the fact that it is a more urban festival, it was decided that the stages should be indoors, and the Pretoria show grounds was chosen as the venue to host OppiKoppi, given the first-rate infrastructure and large halls that are available at the venue.

The venue is situated in the centre of town, and boasts several huge rooms, ranging in size from 8000 capacity down to a few hundred. The infrastructure includes restaurants, bars and existing food stalls, toilets, fencing and security and plenty of camping space and secure parking areas. In addition, a small theatre, arenas and even a sports stadium are at hand, should the need arise to host an inter-provincial soccer tournament at the festival. 

During the Pretoria show, the venue comfortably handles up to 45 000 people per day with ease, so any overcrowding that happens will be a nice problem to have in the future. The carnival type atmosphere of the show grounds lends itself perfectly to this kind of event, and a number of outdoor activities and performances are planned. The near perfect scenario that faces the organisers allows them the freedom to get as creative as possible without worrying about snags like an afternoon thunderstorm that could so easily make or break the proceedings.

For those fans who still feel the need to camp, there will be a large camping area at the venue. Of course this also solves the problem of driving home late at night after a wild party. 

With the involvement this year of YFM and 5FM, OppiKoppi is one step closer to creating a truly multi-cultural and cross-over music event. 

This year's festival will have the traditional main stage arena (indoors, 10 000 capacity), catering for visiting international bands as well as big name local acts. 
The dance stage is hosted by 206 Live, who celebrate eight years in the industry with a huge bash at the festival. (Indoors, capacity 5000). This stage runs practically 24 hours during the festival, and includes the best of our local dj's, hip hop and dance bands as well as their visiting international counterparts. This stage is proudly sponsored by Levi's as the start of a three year programme with the festival.

The Skelm Stage will be hosted by SL magazine. An extremely popular introduction to last year's festival, this stage hosts an eclectic array of acts, from movies to comedy, whacky theatre, performance art and the not-so-mediocre bands and other maladroit forms of entertainment. In short, anything goes.

The small theatre at the show grounds is a true gem, and seats about 300.
Here you will find unplugged acoustic sets by some of our favourite artists, theatre performances, a smidgen of jazz acts and also dance groups. A beautiful and intimate way to get away from the rowdy festivities and relax for a while.

Lastly we have the Red Bull Rare Beats arena, highlighting the bedroom dj's and producers that make their own electronic music which is not necessarily dance floor material. This stage will have its own beer garden and eatery, kind of like a musical tavern of sorts. Expect some weird and broken beats. Nice.

In the walkways between the halls and stages there will be an assortment of impromptu entertainers and mime artists, monsters inc's and other weird and wonderful entertainers decked out in full regalia for your visual and aural pleasure. 

Other countries that will represent at this year's festival include Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Malawi, Belgium, The Netherlands, Norway, Cape Town, France and the United Kingdom. The line-up is under construction and promises to be one of the most musically appealing ever.

All the stages are indoors in case of rain, but they provide a 'club in the middle of nowhere scene' as well. The names of the stages are as follows:

Big Pit Stage: Big stage, lots of lights, bells, whistle and beeeg bands.

Upper Pit Stage: Alternating with the big pit stage, the upper stage ensures a virtual constant flow of tunes in the main arena.

Skelm Stage (Presented by Red Bull and SL): caters for the art, poetry, film and related musical performances.

206 Dance Stage (Presented by Levi's): will be the host of 206 production's 8th birthday celebration

Below is the full line up in day order. 

Friday 28th November 2003:
(Fridays focus is broadly speaking on pop/rock and breakbeat acts.)

Brasse Vannie Kaap
Tweak
Boo!
The Narrow
Sugardrive
Arno Carstens' New Porn
Tidal Waves
Somerfaan
Karen Zoid
Homegrown Hints
Honey B
A Blunted Stuntman
Kenzhero
Flip Kowlier
E-Quad
A-Trak
Kid Fonque
Ultrasonic
Bed on Bricks

Saturday 29th November 2003:
(Saturday's focus falls more on hip-hop, house and African rhythms.)

Brenda Fassie
Max Normal
Skwatta Kamp
Tumi and the Volume
Godessa
Carlo Mombelli and the Prisoners of Strange
Wambali
Beef
Rise
340ml
Mabulu
Kapa Dech
Rudeboy Paul and Azanian Pulse
Corne & Twakkie
Kenzhero
Lebo Mashile
Ntsiki Mazwai
't Hof van Commerce
Tamara Dey and the Boys
Naked DJ
C-Live
Nutty Tek
Dolla featuring Hidden Force
Trinity
Amu
Shaun Duvet
Fletcher
Bionic
Sudan
The Boogieman
DJ Christos
Zampano
Casa de Capoeira
MXO
Cashless Society
Two Twiggs Experiment

Information on all the artists is available from Oppikoppi.

Contact:
E-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
Web: www.oppikoppi.co.za

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