Jacaranda FM celebrates purple with R50k concert experience prize

Jacaranda FM celebrates ‘More Music you Love’ by paying homage to the canopies of purple blooms in their #JacarandasEverywhere campaign this month.

By showing the station the beautiful jacaranda flowers in bloom everywhere, listeners could win a concert experience with tickets to either One Republic, Sting, or Imagine Dragons, including a VIP chauffeur-driven service, a special wine and dine experience before the show, as well as accommodation on the night of the concert to the value of R50,000.

“Jacarandas bloom from late September to November, draping our urban landscapes and cityscapes in magnificent shades of purple. This annual burst of purple celebrates our passion for bringing families across Mzansi the best music, entertainment, news, and experiences – and so we created an interactive campaign that celebrated #JacarandasEverywhere,” shares Deirdre King, managing director at Jacaranda FM.

To enter, simply snap your yourself against a sea of #JacarandasEverywhere, upload the image to your social media platform of choice, and tag with #JacarandasEverywhere to be one of the lucky winners to walk away with the grand prize worth R50,000. Finalist will be highlighted on air throughout the week, and spot prizes will also be up for grabs. Make sure you tune into Breakfast with Martin Bester on Friday 7 October between 6am and 9am for the winners announcement.

“From the purple runways in Arcadia, Pretoria to the views from the scenic Munro Drive in Houghton and Melville where the purple jacaranda blossoms take over the pink bougainvillaea on 4th Avenue, there are spots all across Mzansi for our community to enjoy and snap a picture to enter,” adds King.

10 interesting facts about jacaranda trees and the colour purple

1. The jacaranda tree represents wisdom, rebirth, wealth, and good luck. In fact, local legend has it that the jacaranda tree is associated with the Amazonian moon goddess who is known for her wisdom, and when a jacaranda bloom falls on a students head it is considered good luck.
   
2. While Pretoria may be known as the Jacaranda City with more than 70,000 trees lining its streets, it is actually Johannesburg that has more jacaranda trees.
   
3. You can eat the flower, it’s not toxic, but it doesn’t taste good either.
   
4. Purple is associated with creativity, royalty, and wealth.
   
5. The colour purple became associated with wealth and royalty because the rich were the only people who could afford clothing and items dyed purple.
   
6. Within the LGBTQI+ community, the purple within the pride flag represents non-binary gender identifiers
   
7. Visually, purple is one of the most difficult colours to discriminate. It also has the strongest electromagnetic wavelength, being just a few wavelengths up from x-rays or gamma rays. This is why purple is often chosen for visual illusions like the lilac chaser illusion.
   
8. In writing, the phrase ‘purple prose’ is often used to describe an extremely imaginative idea.
   
9. We’re not allowed to replace a jacaranda tree when one dies – they’re an invasive species, so we have the most blooms of purple across the country that we’re ever going to see right now.
   
10. Mzansi really cares about their jacaranda trees. So much so that the jacaranda tree was once one of the best April Fool's jokes. In 2001, Carte Blanche reported that government had decided to remove all of the water-guzzling aliens. The public was up in arms, and although it turned out to be just an April Fool's joke, the records was set that South Africans are not willing to part with their beloved jacarandas.
    

Entries are now open and winners will be announced on Friday morning, 7 October. For more details, visit www.jacarandafm.com.