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East Nusa Tenggara music festival entertains thousands of local, foreign visitors
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The Wonderful Indonesia Atoin Meto TTU music festival held on June 19 was a success. (Shutterstock/File)
I
t was only 9:30 in the morning and people could be found flocking to the Resort TTU Insana Utara Sector Police station in North Central Timor (TTU) regency in East Nusa Tenggara (NTT) on Monday.
They were there to catch the performance of The Voice Indonesia 2016 winner, Mario Gerardus Klau, as part of the music festival called Wonderful Indonesia Atoin Meto TTU.
The festival began with opening remarks by TTU Deputy Regent Aloysius Kobes who expressed his gratitude to the Tourism Ministry for its hard work in improving TTU tourism.
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“Thank you to the Tourism Ministry for making this concert an annual event as it can provide more income and job opportunities for locals,” said Aloysius.
Aloysius added that Wini, the capital city of TTU regency, has stunning panoramic views and he urged the people of Wini to be more creative and come up with ideas that could help increase the number of tourists.
“We have Libas beach and hills with beautiful views. Let’s all come up with ways to develop our own village,” he said.
The concert began at 10:30 a.m. with an opening act by local band Harmoni who performed five songs.
Spotted among the concertgoers were dozens of students from Yogyakarta's Gajah Mada University who happened to be conducting research in NTT at the time.
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Afterwards, it was finally time for 19-year-old Mario to get on stage and greet his fans. Mario performed a total of 10 songs including renditions of “Malaikat” (Angel), which was originally performed by singer Judika, and “Gila-gilaan” (Going All Out) by The Changcuters.
“This is my neighborhood and it is my first concert here. I personally feel very happy that I get to entertain the local people here. You guys need to always welcome our neighbors from Timor Leste, make them feel comfortable [visiting] here,” said Mario in front of the thousands of people in the audience.
According to the ministry, there are 21 events slated to be held in NTT between June and November this year. The closest one after the music festival is an event in Atambua on June 23. (kes)
