Dady Mimbo welcomed early visitors to the 22nd Africa festival in Wuerzburg with trance music from Cameroon before the official opening ceremony. In order to keep the visitors in festive mood and give a taste of what could be expected in the next festival days; his performance was followed by the South African music artist Zivaduma that provided entertaining mixture of percussion and pop music.

The Official opening ceremony began at about 18:30 CEST in the presence of some African diplomats, music stars, German government officials and invited guests. The Lord Mayor of Wuerzburg, Georg Rosenthal presented a brief history of Africa Festival, thanked the august guests for accepting the invitation and praised the diligent work of the organizing team. He later introduced the South African Minister of Arts and Culture, Lulu Xingwana, who gave an exciting speech about South Africa and the upcoming Soccer World Cup.

Each year, the festival organizers award African music artists or organizations for their exceptional engagements or positive social impacts. This year, the Africa Festival Award recipients include the South African voice Vusi Mahlasela and the Ghanaian acrobatic theater group Adessa. Adessa has been performing at the Africa Festival since the first event to the delight of children in particular. With snacks, drinks, music interludes and acrobatic performance by Adessa, the opening ceremony induced an atmosphere of togetherness that prevailed at the festival.

The enjoyment continued after the opening ceremony with the performance of Dobet Gnahore, a powerful vocalist from Ivory Coast, on the open air stage. Later in the evening, live concerts of Vusi Mahlasela and the young versatile South African Afro-Soul diva, Lira, kept the visitors in high spirits.

The second day of the festival started with a discussion podium with the title “Good Morning South Africa. How are you?” in which the music artist Lira and  the South African Minster of Arts and Culture among others discussed post apartheid South Africa, the social as well as economic impact of the Soccer World Cup. As usual visitors could visit the restaurants, walk around the market and shop or attend other programs of the event such as film shows, theater, photo exhibition, percussion sessions and discotheques in the evening.  The open air stage featured Adjiri, African world music from Ghana, Foumata Diawara from Mali and Djamel Laroussi from Algeria. The first evening concert featured energetic performance by Chiwoniso and Max Wild paying tribute to Sam Mtukudzi, who was supposed to perform at the festival but died in a car accident a few weeks before the festival. One of the well known South African music groups, Freshlyground, later took on the stage to deliver a harmonious blend of R&B, pop, house, rock and jazz.

HIV Aids in South Africa was the topic of the discussion podium on the third day of the festival. Members of two organizations actively involved in caring for the infected and educating the public explained the difficulties encountered in their projects as well as their accomplishments.

On the open air stage, Les Espoirs de Coronthie from Guinea, Layori from Nigeria and Carlou D from Senegal entertained the visitors. Mariana Ramos, the beautiful voice from Cape Verde opened the evening concert with a mixture of ballads, blues, pop and afro-beat. Her performance was followed by the concert of the renowned Senegalese music artist Youssou N’dour.

The last day of the festival, May 24 2010, began with a press conference with Youssou N’dour under the title “Is poverty in Africa the result of bad government?”  The weather remained sunny and the open air stage offered interesting music artists.  The reggae band, Tidall Waves from South Africa, Mellow Maroc, a band made up of German and Moroccan musicians, and Kwani Experience, a young South African band provided the visitors with music combinations from reggae, pop, rock, gospel, soul and percussions.  The last shows of the Africa Festival Wuerzburg 2010 are two live concerts; the first with Takana Zion, a reggae music artist from Guinea and the second with Dele, the Ghanaian-German versatile singer and guitarist. In all, over 100.000 visitors were counted over the four days of peaceful festival with a lot of sunshine.