When the cold sets in along the Garden Route and the rest of South Africa pulls on a jersey and stays home, Knysna does something completely different. It throws a party — and the guest of honour is an oyster.
The 43rd Knysna Oyster Festival runs from July 3 to July 12, and it’s more than a seafood event. It’s one of South Africa’s most popular winter festivals, built around the singular reputation of a small coastal town and the extraordinary mollusc that made it famous.
Visitors come for the oysters but also to run, cycle, walk and play. This year the theme is “A feast of family fun” and visitors can choose from among about 100 activities on the programme across the greater Knysna area during the week: outdoor adventures, sports, food, markets, nature experiences and live entertainment.
It’s a time of the year when Knysna’s problems, like a looming water day zero or the threat of fires, fade away. Lungiswa Goya of the Knysna municipality describes it as “a time to grow the festival while creating a world-class experience for visitors, participants and the local community”.
It started as the Winter Festival in 1983 when the late Dick Ginsberg, the owner of a men’s outfitters, got together with the manager of the Knysna Publicity Association, Rose Smith, to organise an event that would bring business into town during June — the quietest time of the year and referred to as the “suicide month” for local hospitality businesses and restaurants.
By the mid-1980s, it had become the Knysna Oyster Festival. It has weathered all sorts of storms — the fires in 2017 and then Covid (it was virtual in 2020 and then a hybrid event in 2021) — and is still going strong. Sponsors have come and gone over the years. This year Omoda and Jaecoo, two car brands owned by China’s Chery Automobile, are the naming sponsors.
Festival organisers don’t have recent statistics; the last official survey was done in 2015. It showed that about 55,000 people visited Knysna during the 10 days and spent about R92m on accommodation, eating and drinking, shopping and other tourism activities.
According to property management and online booking platform NightsBridge, accommodation was up 7% in 2025. Organisers expect a good turnout this year in spite of the increase in fuel costs.
While activities lure locals out of their winter burrows, it is the high-profile sporting attractions — running and cycling — that fill the town for at least two weekends.
The Knysna Forest marathon and half-marathon takes place on Saturday July 4 with about 7,500 runners, most of whom choose the shorter distance. With their friends and families, that’s about 12,000 people in town that weekend. It’s a bucket-list event for many runners: where else in the world can you start a race in the darkness of an indigenous forest and finish with sweeping views of the estuary and the Knysna Heads?
The Knysna Cycle Tour is the other big sporting event of the festival and attracts about 2,500 riders. The mountain bike event — with distances of 35km, 45km and 67km — takes place on Saturday July 11. The cycling action continues with road races on Sunday July 12.
Throughout the week there are various outdoor activities that make the most of Knysna’s winter scenery. These include the fossil footprints hike along Platbank beach and the Gericke’s Point rock pools, the Forest Wood wide web walk through the indigenous forest, the fynbos hike at Goukamma Nature Reserve and the moonlight meander at Gericke’s beach.
The offroad Houtkapper trail run is on Sunday July 5. As the route winds through the Knysna forests, it passes landmarks associated with author Dalene Matthee’s stories of the area. The event caters for all people of all fitness levels with challenging 27km and 15km routes and an easier 9km option.
The Harbour 2 Heads Lagoon Challenge on July 12 starts at the Knysna Yacht Club, offering juniors (under 15) a 4km route on the estuary, with open races over 12km and 24km for older paddlers.
Other events include water polo, golf, padel and boxing. Community-oriented events include football, netball and basketball tournaments, and this year 10-man rugby and touch rugby competitions are part of the festival.
The Young Oyster Community Library programme caters for children, offering arts and crafts programmes.
At the heart of it all is the festival hub at the Knysna High School sports field. The giant tent is a lively, family-friendly space where something is always happening. With a dedicated children’s entertainment area, a wide selection of food and craft stalls and live entertainment throughout the day, it’s an easy place for families to settle in and make a day of it.
The annual Knysna Wine Festival will be held at the Simola Hotel on July 3 and 4.
A popular event is the oyster cooking and shucking championship on Tuesday July 7 at the main hub. Restaurants compete to win the prize of best-dressed oyster, and the oyster shucking competition will chase the world record of 38 oysters in one minute.
For those with a sweet tooth, the Dessert War Fair takes place on Wednesday July 8, when restaurants and bakers go to battle to make the best dessert.
Events take place across the greater Knysna area — including the lagoon, forests, Thesen Harbour town, Hornlee, Loerie Park, Sedgefield and Rheenendal — spreading the economic benefits beyond the hub and giving smaller businesses a chance to be involved.
And of course, oysters are eaten prolifically during the festival. Charles van Tonder of the Quartet restaurants (Drydock, 34South, Sirocco and Tapas) says they go through about 15,000 cultivated oysters and 20,000 of the coastal variety during the festival.
Oysters are no longer farmed in Knysna, having failed to thrive in the estuary, but there’s still the coastal kind, harvested from rock pools on local beaches along the Garden Route’s 250km coastline. Cultivated oysters are brought to Knysna from Port Elizabeth and the Agulhas area.
“The superb Cape rock oyster will always occupy pride of place on the true oyster aficionado’s table,” says Van Tonder. “Though the widely farmed and tasty Pacific oysters have an important role in ensuring that oysters remain on menus the world over, the Cape rock oyster is truly special and needs to be conserved and nurtured so that it can continue to grace the tables of the best southern Cape eateries for generations to come,” he says.
“Knysna is known across the globe as an oyster town, and this is part of what makes it a place that people journey great distances to visit. And it is the Cape rock oyster that draws them and must continue to draw them,” says Van Tonder.
The festival has always given to charity. In 2025, local beneficiaries received R597,400, R407,500 of which was generated by the Knysna Forest marathon and other events.
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