The first Gay and Lesbian weekend in Hermanus will be held this year from 9 to 11 November. The event will be called the Moby Dick Festival, and is officially sponsored by Good Hope FM. This is a three-day event, which will be run by Cape Town-based Wasabi Marketing, and which aims to create a fun weekend for gays, lesbians and their friends. It also aims at boosting the tourism industry. A share of the profits of the festival will be donated to the Overstrand Hospice, which provides Palliative Care to improve patients’ quality of life and assist their families irrespective of their ability to pay for the service. Gary Hopkins conceived the idea for Moby Dick after seeing the success of the Pink Loerie Festival and the Mother City Queer Project. There are three events that will form the focus of the festival. On Friday, 9 November, it opens with an Old School Anthems party hosted by Good Hope FM’s Grant Lesch and Top Dawg at the Hawston multi-purpose centre. After this, Grotto Beach will provide a day of entertainment with beach activities. The highlight of the festival is certainly the dance event on Saturday, 10 November, where Derek The Bandit (ex-5FM) will headline the evening, joined by Good Hope FM’s Tryone Paulsen and DJ Blaine, and Leroy B. Good Hope FM is the official broadcast sponsor of the festival, and will be running an on-air competition. The competition calls for listeners to enter and win the Ultimate Dirty Weekend until 8 November. The prize includes a VW Eos Cabriolet for the weekend, tickets for two for two nights accommodation, shark dives and Moby Dick events, as well as Assegai Personal Lubrication and Birkenhead Breweries hampers. For further details, contact Wasabi Marketing’s Gary Hopkins at 021 683 1616 or 083 575 1493.