New waterfront set to welcome Siniawan Country Music Festival from Sept 26-28
BAU (July 27): The newly completed Siniawan Waterfront will be the venue for this year's 8th Siniawan Country Music Festival from Sept 26 to 28, announced Serembu assemblyman Miro Simuh.
He said the Siniawan Waterfront will be officially declared open by Premier Datuk Patinggi Tan Sri Abang Johari Tun Openg on the morning of Sept 27, followed by the launch of the 8th Siniawan Country Music Festival later that day by National Unity Minister Dato Sri Aaron Ago Dagang.
In addition, he revealed two other events will also take place concurrently during the same three days, namely the 185th anniversary of Siniawan town and the 50th anniversary of the Siniawan street night market.
'It is going to be the 185th anniversary of Siniawan town, which was founded in 1840, and also the 50th anniversary of the Siniawan street night market. So, there will be four celebrations that we are going to celebrate in one location, which we are going to organise soon.
'There will be a lot of VIPs coming down. And of course, we, as the organisers, will be busy within these two months doing all the preparations,' he said at a press conference at the Siniawan bazaar last night.
Miro, who is advisor to the Siniawan Country Music Festival, was hopeful there would be a larger crowd of more than 10,000 people for the event at its new and bigger venue.
'We will have 11 bands that will perform for the three consecutive nights on the main stage, and we will have a few solo performers on the old street,' he added.
According to him, the Siniawan Country Music Festival is now the biggest country music event in Asia.
He also said his dream is to one day invite a band from Nashville, widely recognised as the 'Country Music Capital of the World', to perform in Siniawan.
'But we hope that one day we're going to bring international artistes here to Siniawan, either from the United States, from Europe or from Australia,' he added.
On the Siniawan Waterfront, he said the RM9 million project is finally completed despite some delays since construction started five years ago.
He explained the due date for completion is on July 31, with the contractor now doing minor touch up work at the site.
'Finally, we got it (completed) this year,' he enthused.
He also revealed further developments in Siniawan include a proposed RM28 million multi-level car park and a Siniawan Arena which can accommodate 5,000 spectators at one time.
These initiatives, he said, are aimed to establish Siniawan as a tourism catalyst in the Bau district.
Meanwhile, the Siniawan Country Music Festival crganising chairman Dylan Lai said the event has evolved since its inception in 2016.
He also emphasised that the unique charm of Siniawan's old wooden shoplots — reminiscent of the Wild West — was instrumental in branding the town as a 'cowboy town.'
'In the first year of the Country Music Festival, we had almost 8,000 people coming to Siniawan. And for the second edition in 2017, we had almost 10,000.
'So that has been a very good impact for Siniawan. This is the one thing I want to thank YB Miro for, to put this event in our hometown and then attract more tourists and all the cowboys and cowgirls to join this event.
'Because the event will be held at the new venue waterfront area this year, we hope we can attract more than 10,000 people to join our festival,' said Lai. 8th Siniawan Country Music Festival lead Miro Simuh Siniawan waterfront
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