Cape Town welcomes over 3.4 million people at events organised in 2025. The city delivered strong attendance, economic impact and job creation by affirming its status as Africa’s leading events destination.
Events Permit Office of the City of Cape Town approved 1064 events in 2025 between Jan 01 and Dec 31. These ranged from major international sporting fixtures and large-scale festivals to community and cultural gatherings.
Such events attracted over 3,472,000 spectators and participants during the calendar year. A review of the 25 events was supported by the city shows as a holistic contribution to the economy including direct and indirect economic activity, supply-chain benefits and destination marketing value are generated by the events. Out of all events 15 resulted in economic activity worth over R2.5 billion.
Member of the Mayoral Committee for Safety and Security – Alderman JP Smith said that through its Special Events Support Process, the City of Cape Town has provided support to scores of events in 2025 that reinforced the commitment to grow the events sector and strengthen its long-term economic sustainability.
Review of the calendar year shows that 25 events were collectively created, approx. 40,900 employment opportunities, spanning both permanent and temporary jobs. Also, just seven events generated a combined PR and destination marketing value of over R600 million by creating trading and exhibition opportunities for over 2000 SMMEs.
This underscored the determination to work closely with event organisers to stimulate economic growth, create jobs, foster social cohesion and position the Mother City as a globally competitive destination for events of all scales. Diverse events calendar of Cape Town included some thrilling showpieces in 2025.
Further, Cape Town has already kicked off the new year with a lively mix of events, including the Cape Town Street Parade, two sold out DHL Stormers matches and a sold-out SA20 Final at Newlands Cricket Ground.
The Mother City is completely in for another exciting year of events that feature some of Cape Town’s popular annual events and the highly anticipated Springboks v/s All Blacks test Match at DHL Stadium.
The Stormers will also be playing the All Blacks in a pre-cursor for the Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry Tour. The EFC’s Knox Legacy Series will ignite the love of Mother City for combat sports at Grand Arena of GrandWest in February.