The First Official GTI Fan Festival Announced as a Resounding Success
August 2024
Under the theme “Icons Coming Home”, the 2024 GTI Fan Festival was hosted on the doorstep of Volkswagen’s Wolfsburg head office from 26-28 July.
After the announcement of the cancellation of the annual Wörthersee gathering of VAG enthusiasts in Austria, Volkswagen AG moved quickly to secure the future of this hugely popular event, relishing the opportunity to host it at the home of the brand – and, indeed, of the Golf itself.
Admittedly not yet on the scale of Wörthersee in terms of visitor numbers – nor the accompanying festivities that this town’s local community grew weary of – the first GTI Fan Festival was held in the Volkswagen Arena precinct, within walking distance of VW’s impressive Autostadt facility.
The show included official presentations by both VWAG and a selection of aftermarket tuning houses. The former included displays of past concept cars and design studies and a showcase of the brand’s current crop of high-performance Golf derivatives. Visitors young and old were treated to various festivities including children’s rides, food stands and a quickly sold-out apparel store, as well as guest appearances and talks by several brand-related personalities and owners of noteworthy cars.
Special guest, chairperson and managing director of Volkswagen Group Africa, Martina Biene, presented the proud history of the brand in South Africa and anecdotes of our market’s love for the Golf, in particular. To the joy of the gathered crowd, this included tales of the venerable Citi Golf and the various nicknames associated with the Golf GTI in the SA market.
Biene also used the opportunity of her time on stage to confirm Volkswagen Group Africa’s continued support for South Africa’s own annual gathering of VW enthusiasts, the SA Camp Fest hosted every February in Bela-Bela, outside of Limpopo.
While 15 000 visitors entered via the gates to the first official GTI Fan Festival, a highlight of this event was the more than 700 GTIs representing all eight generations, to date, that gathered in the show’s main parking area. From spectacularly well-maintained original examples of the earliest Mk1 to highly tuned examples from every era of the GTI, the festival culminated in a convoy of these owners and their cars being granted permission to drive the network of streets within VWAG’s impressive Wolfsburg Production facility.
