Tanjung Setia Festival IV

Tanjung Setia Festival is an annual event organized by the county government of Lampung Barat, which aims to boost tourist visits to this area. Tanjung Setia is the name of a place in the coastal side of Lampung Barat, about 22 km south of Krui. Tanjung Setia has a beautiful tourist destination that is quite well known, not only in Indonesia, but also in the whole world, namely Pantai Tanjung Setia (Tanjung Setia Beach). Pantai Tanjung Setia is not only popular for its beauty, but also for the waves, which are suitable for surfing. Many foreign tourists come to this place to surf, as well as to have a vacation with their family. 

Though it’s well known enough, this place still needs an active campaign to boost the visits even more, either domestic tourists or foreign tourists. 

Tanjung Setia Festival has been held several times, and this year is the fourth. This 4^th Festival held on July 9 and July 10, 2011. As in previous years, this festival also held some sports as its core events, they are surfing contest, swimming in the sea contest, spear gun fishing contest, beach volleyball contest, beach soccer contest and also art shows. 

Some contests are not only joined by local contestant but also foreigners. Swimming in the sea contest, both male and female events were won by foreign contestants. While other events, especially land sports that are not associated with the sea, are all followed by local participants. 

The art shows in the first day were all dances. There were at least three kind of dances performed on the stage by students from schools nearby. All the dances were amazing. The dancers were incredibly good. If you like dancing, don’t miss this part. You’ll be blown away for sure.

Local people from around Tanjung Setia and Krui were very enthusiastic with this festival. They came from every parts of the town, packed the beach, hooted their favorite contestants, and cheered as to make the festival even more lively. There was hardly any event that they skipped watching. Hooting and cheering sounds for their favorites were always heard here and there. 

Nice weather, lovely beach, shady trees, and friendly sea are all that made the folks enjoy the festival even more, and kept them stay there till the end. Some people enjoyed what they see like they never see things like that before; they  had the time of their life in the festival, really.

The lively festival was opened by the premiere of Lampung Barat Drs. Mukhlis Basri, MM, and attended by assembly of leaders of Lampung Barat county, as well as local legislators. 

In his speech, Mukhlis Basri expressed his pride for the beauty of nature god gives to Lampung Barat. 'God created Lampung Barat when he was smiling,' he said. And he also appeals to the people of Lampung Barat, especially the people of Tanjung Setia, for their gratefulness and their willingness to keep their county beautiful and clean so as to make the tourism industry grow even more, and can pay tribute to local revenue, eventually. Mukhlis also mentioned that there are several tourist attractions in Lampung Barat that remains unrevealed, and he is confident that if the attractions have been explored and made up, they will become another attractive destinations which are not less attractive than others, even better, in Indonesia and even in the world.

At the end of his speech, he gave some hints that, if nothing gets in the way, Krui airport maybe on operation by the end of the year. Good news!

Completion and operation of Krui airport has been long awaited by Krui people. If the airport is on operation, the tourism industry is expected to boost more and even more. And the region can develop. 

The only flaw of this festival is the language they used. The crew and the masters of ceremony only spoke Indonesian. The speeches also totally delivered in Indonesian. Neither the announcers with the microphone nor the officials who managed the contest said a word in English. Foreign audiences both who joined the contest and who were just there to watch were simply dumfounded. They didn’t know what were going on unless someone from the crowd explained the things and tell them what to do in his broken English.   

And the surf competition which always depend on the waves started much earlier in the morning, when there weren’t many crowd of people yet, way before the opening ceremony began.

But anyway, the festival is an interesting thing to see.

See you next year.