26/08/2026
Sedgefield’s International Kite Festival: Where Tourism Takes Flight and Community Benefits
• Date: Sunday, 18 October 2026
• Venue: Scarab Village, Sedgefield
Sedgefield’s skies are about to come alive – and the whole Garden Route stands to benefit.
Few community events can claim to bring together international tourism, local economic opportunity, spectacular entertainment and meaningful social impact quite like the RE/MAX Garden Route Kite Festival.
Now in its 10th year, Sedgefield’s much-loved kite festival has grown from a community initiative into an event with a growing international profile, attracting visitors, generating significant media exposure and raising funds for a cause that directly changes young lives.
The 2026 festival will welcome eight confirmed international kite flyers and six professional South African kiters, bringing colour, skill and spectacle to Sedgefield’s skies. Their participation strengthens the festival’s position as an emerging international kite tourism destination, giving visitors another compelling reason to include Sedgefield and the Garden Route in their travel plans.
But the festival is about far more than kites. It offers a vibrant family experience with a mass kite fly, craft and food market, children’s entertainment, dog agility displays and school art competitions, creating an event that appeals to residents and visitors alike.
What makes the festival particularly special is that tourism activity translates directly into community benefit. Organised by Masithandane, the festival is the organisation’s primary fundraising platform for its Children’s Bursary Fund, which supports vulnerable learners from Sedgefield who need to travel outside the town to attend high school. In other words, every visitor, exhibitor and sponsor contributes to something bigger.
The kites bring people to Sedgefield. The visitors stimulate the local economy. And the proceeds help give young people a better future. A proven economic and media success
The 2025 festival, held at the Scarab Market, attracted approximately 2 000 visitors and generated an estimated R529 033 in economic activity for Sedgefield and surrounding areas. It also raised R62 000 for the Masithandane Bursary Fund.
The festival's reach extended far beyond Sedgefield. Coverage across SABC News, The Sedgefield Edge, EP Herald, Algoa FM, YouTube and social media generated an estimated 13.5 million media impressions, with an Advertising Value Equivalent of approximately R2.87 million. That represents extraordinary exposure for a community-based event and provides a powerful platform for promoting Sedgefield, the Garden Route and the Western Cape as tourism destinations.
The festival demonstrates what can happen when organisations share a common vision. The partnership between RE/MAX Coastal as Title Sponsor, Wesgro as Joint Venture Partner, and the Garden Route District Municipality as Strategic Support Partner, together with Masithandane and the wider Sedgefield community, has helped turn a local event into a tourism attraction with regional and international potential. It creates opportunities for local SMMEs, accommodation providers, restaurants, traders and tourism businesses while simultaneously supporting community development.
Come and watch Sedgefield take flight. The RE/MAX Garden Route Kite Festival is more than an annual event. It is tourism with purpose.
As Sedgefield celebrates the festival’s 10th anniversary, the message is simple:
Come for the kites. Stay for the Garden Route. And leave knowing that your visit has helped make a difference.
Because when Sedgefield’s kites take flight, the whole community rises with them.
