Hangout events Director Wachipeta Mkandawire has disclosed that they have failed

to organize this year’s Hangout Festival at Kambiri beach in Salima due to scarcity of foreign

currency in the country.

Mkandawire told Story Club FM in an interview on Tuesday that they were ready to give

Malawians another massive festival this year as they have already progressed in booking a venue

and two Nigerian artists Davido and Omah Lay to headline the event.

He said; “As organizers, we were ready to come up with another massive festival for

entertainment lovers in the country to enjoy live performances from both local and international

artists, but things got out of our hand as we failed to find 85,000 USD (K96.5 million) through our

banks in order to pay the two Nigerian artists we have booked.

Mkandawire continued to say that they tried to buy the dollars on the black market but they

were unsuccessful as they needed almost K170 million to land the two artists only which could

have been a loss.

However he concluded to make an assurance that the festival will be back next year as the have

agreed a deal with a USA based event organizer to be processing the fees for the international

artists when forex is unavailable in the country for them to be consistent with the festival.