Lahore is all set to host the second edition of the Lahore Eat festival which has finally received a no objection certificate (NOC) from the district administration after a delay of almost two months.
The three-day festival will kick off on Friday at Fortress Stadium. Originally, the festival’s venue was set for Jilani Park (commonly known as Race Course Park) during the second week of February but the district administration did not allow it to go forward because of security issues after a suicide blast that claimed 14 lives the city in February.
Lahore Eat will jointly be organised by CKO Event Architecture and Latitude CRS and will include live music performances. The CKO Event Architecture is the same company that has successfully organised four editions of Karachi Eat and was also behind the Lahore Eat festival last year.
Nusrat Jamil, one of the organisers, told Pakistan Today that poor people have been left with no recreational activities but the festival would give them much to cherish over the course of the three-day festival. “The monster of terrorism has significantly affected such events and we saw the Lahore Literary Festival (LLF) truncated to become a one-day event because of security concerns,” Jamil said, who is also a member of the LLF’s board of governors.
“Lahore Eat will be a family event and I urge the citizens of Lahore to participate in the festival in droves to give a strong message to terrorists,” she added. “Families can enjoy live music performances as well: Pappu Sain will perform on the first day and Ali Sethi will perform on the second,” she said, adding that the prices of food items will be very nominal.
The stalls of Ashraf Tikka, Waris Nihari, Maro Tandoors, Cosa Nostra, Pancake Lounge, Tao, and many other food outlets will be set up at the festival.
CKO Director Aslam Khan told this scribe that there was no need to worry about the security situation as this year the festival would be held at one of the city’s safest places: Fortress Stadium. “There will be separate entry and exit points while walk-through gates will also be installed by the army,” he said.
