{"id":88495,"date":"2025-10-22T18:08:41","date_gmt":"2025-10-22T18:08:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/uncategorized\/banjul-cultural-festival-taskforce-gears-up-for-2025-celebration"},"modified":"2025-10-22T18:29:57","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T18:29:57","slug":"banjul-cultural-festival-taskforce-gears-up-for-2025-celebration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/all-news\/banjul-cultural-festival-taskforce-gears-up-for-2025-celebration","title":{"rendered":"Banjul Cultural Festival Taskforce Gears up for 2025 Celebration"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong>Africa-Press &#8211; Gambia. <\/strong><\/span><b>The task force committee responsible for organizing the Banjul Cultural Festival has reconvened to begin preparations for the highly anticipated 2025 edition of the festival, scheduled for December. The meeting was held at the conference hall of the Ministry of Tourism, Arts, and Culture.<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Also known as the Hunting Festival, the Banjul Cultural Festival, is a weeklong cultural extravaganza that kicks off on Christmas Eve and culminates at dawn on New Year\u2019s Day. The festival attracts a large crowd, drawing both locals and international visitors, with many in the diaspora returning a home to reconnect with their cultural roots. A major highlight of the event is the colorful parade of masqueraders, known as \u2018egungun,\u2019 from various groups across Banjul.<\/p>\n<p>The taskforce meeting, held on Tuesday, was chaired by Honourable Abdoulie Jobe, Minister of Tourism, Arts and Culture (MOTAC), in collaboration with the National Centre for Arts and Culture (NCAC).<\/p>\n<p>During the session, the Minister reviewed the achievements of the 2024 festival and commended the task force for their cooperation, dedication, and hard work. He noted that while the 2024 festival achieved an impressive 99% success, there is still room for improvement, and more efforts are needed to make the 2025 celebration even better.<\/p>\n<p>Committee heads were allowed to provide feedback, followed by a joint discussion to refine strategies for the upcoming festival. Afterward, the task force members split into smaller groups to fine-tune their respective plans.<\/p>\n<p>Hassoum Ceesay, Director General of the NCAC, thanked the committee members for their continued commitment and encouraged them to make the 2025 Banjul Cultural Festival a memorable and successful celebration.<\/p>\n<p><strong>For More News And Analysis About <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Gambia<\/span> Follow <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Africa-Press<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Gambia. The task force committee responsible for organizing the Banjul Cultural Festival has reconvened to begin preparations for the highly anticipated 2025 edition of the festival, scheduled for December. The meeting was held at the conference hall of the Ministry of Tourism, Arts, and Culture. Also known as the Hunting Festival, the Banjul [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":88494,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[260],"class_list":["post-88495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-culture-and-art","tag-gambia"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Banjul Cultural Festival Taskforce Gears up for 2025 Celebration - Gambia<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The task force committee responsible for organizing the Banjul Cultural Festival has reconvened to begin preparations ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/all-news\/banjul-cultural-festival-taskforce-gears-up-for-2025-celebration\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Banjul Cultural Festival Taskforce Gears up for 2025 Celebration\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The task force committee responsible for organizing the Banjul Cultural Festival has reconvened to begin preparations ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/all-news\/banjul-cultural-festival-taskforce-gears-up-for-2025-celebration\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Gambia\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-10-22T18:08:41+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-10-22T18:29:57+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/gambia\/sites\/19\/2025\/10\/sm_1761145166.724892.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1280\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"720\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/all-news\/banjul-cultural-festival-taskforce-gears-up-for-2025-celebration#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/all-news\/banjul-cultural-festival-taskforce-gears-up-for-2025-celebration\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Banjul Cultural Festival Taskforce Gears up for 2025 Celebration\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-10-22T18:08:41+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-10-22T18:29:57+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/all-news\/banjul-cultural-festival-taskforce-gears-up-for-2025-celebration\"},\"wordCount\":281,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/all-news\/banjul-cultural-festival-taskforce-gears-up-for-2025-celebration#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/gambia\/sites\/19\/2025\/10\/sm_1761145166.724892.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Gambia\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"culture and art\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/all-news\/banjul-cultural-festival-taskforce-gears-up-for-2025-celebration#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/all-news\/banjul-cultural-festival-taskforce-gears-up-for-2025-celebration\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/all-news\/banjul-cultural-festival-taskforce-gears-up-for-2025-celebration\",\"name\":\"Banjul Cultural Festival Taskforce Gears up for 2025 Celebration - 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