Aardklop

A national Afrikaans arts festival held in Potchefstroom, Northwestern Province (formerly Transvaal) during late September, beginning October every year.

Origins and aims

The idea of a northern Afrikaans festival, following on the success of the KNK, was conceived at a meeting in Stellenbosch on 26 September 1996, and the first one took place in Potchefstroom in 1998, with Media24 as founding sponsor, Neil van Heerden as Chairman of the board and Giep van Zyl as first Festival Manager. Aardklop (literally meaning something like "Pulse of the Earth") is an Afrikaans neologism created at the time by their publicist Ian Bekker, when looking for a name for the festival.

The first festival had more than 15 000 visitor, and this has steadily grown to over 150000 per year.

Clover Aardklop

In 20** Clover became the "name sponsor" of the festival, and henceforth the festival was officially known as the Clover Aardklop Festival, and productions were sponsored under that name. However, it remains simply Aardklop to most artists and the general public.