What 4 years of party data reveals about the soul of South Africa
We fed four years of food, drink, nightlife and celebration search-demand into one question: which province actually wins? We did not start with stereotypes. We let 6,037 trends across Gauteng, the Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal pick the champions — and some of the winners genuinely surprised us.
The 60-second version
- 🍷 Western Cape is the undisputed wine + coffee + high-tea province — and it isn't close. It searches for wine 7.6× more per person than KZN.
- 🎰 Gauteng runs on stimulation: casinos, adventure parks, energy drinks and strong spirits. It's the "built-entertainment" province with no beach and no mountain.
- 🐟 KZN is the sweet-drink, amapiano-and-weddings coast — over-indexing on Flying Fish (4.4×) and Brutal Fruit (3.4×) like nowhere else.
- 📈 The big national story: going out is up +25%, while DIY / at-home parties collapsed −51%. South Africans came roaring back out.
- 🥃 Despite the global "everyone's going sober" headlines,9 SA is drinking harder and fancier: tequila +118%, cognac +82%, pornstar martini +560%.
- 🎱 Genuinely weird and true: pool, snooker and darts are back (+83%, +63%, +99%).
Every South African has a theory about the provinces. Joburg works hard and parties harder. Cape Town sips natural wine and judges your coffee. Durban is one long, warm, slightly chaotic beach wedding. The theories are fun. They're also lazy — so we tested them against the receipts.
For four years our systems tracked how often South Africans searched for the things they eat, drink, celebrate, rent and queue up for — 6,037 keywords, monthly, from June 2022 to May 2026, split across the national picture and the three provinces that hold 56% of the country between them.1 Then we normalised everything against Census 2022 populations1 so that Gauteng's sheer size couldn't bully its way to victory. The result is the closest thing we have to a national personality test — measured not by what people say, but by what they quietly type into a search bar at 11pm.
- "Per million" = the fair fight. Most charts show searches per million residents per month, so a small province can still win.
- Affinity = personality. When we say a province "over-indexes" 2× on something, it means that thing is twice as central to them as it is to the average South African.
- We cleaned the data. 670 duplicate / placeholder series were removed before any number you see below.
- Search interest isn't consumption. It's intent and curiosity — a brilliant early signal, not a till slip.
Meet the contenders
Three provinces, three completely different brains
Before the championships, one humbling fact: the Western Cape punches massively above its weight. It's the smallest of the three by population, yet it generates the highest search intensity per person in food, drink and "things to do" — it is, by some distance, the most actively-planning, most experience-hungry province in the country.
| Province | Population (Census 2022) | Share of party-search volume | Drink-search intensity (per million / mo) | One-line identity |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gauteng | 15,099,422 | 53.0% | 342,165 | The caffeinated hustler |
| Western Cape | 7,433,019 | 28.4% | 370,664 | The slow-living aesthete |
| KwaZulu-Natal | 12,423,907 | 18.6% | 127,435 | The warm social host |
Notice the contradiction already hiding in the table: KZN is the second-biggest province but the lightest searcher by far. That doesn't mean Durban parties less — it means KZN plans less online and more by word of mouth, more spontaneously, more "just pull in". Keep that in mind; it changes how we read every chart that follows.
Each axis scaled 0–100 against the leading province (per-capita search intensity).
The takeaway: Three almost non-overlapping shapes. Gauteng spikes on spirits, dance music and built activities; the Western Cape owns wine and café culture; KZN stands alone on sweet drinks and weddings.
When three provinces produce shapes this different, "South African culture" stops being one thing. It's three.
The national mood
The myth we busted first: "nobody parties anymore"
You've read the think-pieces. Gen Z drinks 80% less, the night-out is dead, everyone's broke and home by nine. It's a tidy story. South Africa's search data politely disagrees.
We split the data into two baskets. The "going out" basket — pubs, clubs, nightclubs, pool halls, shisanyama spots, cocktail bars, karaoke. And the "staying in" basket — DIY party ideas, at-home party ideas, backyard parties, cheap party ideas, simple birthday ideas. Then we watched them move.
Combined monthly search volume for each basket of behaviours.
The takeaway: Going-out demand climbed +25% over four years while the home/DIY party basket fell −51%. The lines literally cross. South Africans didn't stop partying — they left the house.
This tracks the real world almost perfectly: as load-shedding eased through 2024–2025, the country's social life moved back outdoors and into venues.
Growth in "things to do / near me" search demand, 2022 → 2026.
The takeaway: Every province went out more, but the Western Cape led the re-emergence (+44%), ahead of Gauteng (+32%) and KZN (+23%).
The smallest province is also the most restless: when the world reopened, the Cape booked first.
The collapse of the DIY party is one of the most consistent signals in the entire dataset. Almost every "do it yourself / do it cheap / do it at home" phrase is down 40–56%. These were the lockdown-era survival skills — and South Africa is unlearning them as fast as it can.
4-year change in search demand, national.
The takeaway: Every flavour of the budget, at-home celebration is in freefall — from "party ideas at home" (−56%) to the once-mighty music festival (−54%).
Notice festivals falling alongside DIY. The shift isn't "big events vs small" — it's planned mega-occasions giving way to spontaneous neighbourhood nights out.
4-year change in search demand, national.
The takeaway: Shisanyama spots (+99%), darts venues (+99%), pubs (+91%) and clubs (+89%) all surged. The winners are local, casual and walk-in.
The post-pandemic South African doesn't want a R2,000 ticket. They want a pub with a pool table 10 minutes away.
The loadshedding fingerprint nobody talks about
Here's a story you only see when you connect two datasets that have nothing to do with each other. Generator hire — the most boring keyword imaginable — fell off a cliff.
National search demand for "generator hire" with trend line.
The takeaway: Generator-hire searches fell −59%. The turning point lines up exactly with Eskom suspending load-shedding on 26 March 2024 after a brutal 2023 of 335 shedding days.
Party data is an accidental economic sensor. When the lights stayed on, the country stopped renting generators — and started booking venues again (see the chart above).
That single chart is why we keep saying party data is underrated. People don't lie to a search bar about a generator. South Africa went from 205 load-shedding days in 2022 to 335 in 2023, then just 83 in 2024 and a near-clean 202535 — and the country's leisure behaviour re-inflated the moment the grid stabilised.
The obsessions
What South Africa fell in love with
Some trends didn't just grow. They detonated.
4-year growth in national search demand (selected breakout trends).
The takeaway: Dubai chocolate grew +6,347% — from a rounding error to a national craving. Behind it: pornstar martini (+560%), bento cakes (+523%) and a wave of premium spirits.
Almost every winner is either "premium", "viral-on-TikTok", or "fancy version of a cheap thing". South Africa is trading up.
Dubai chocolate deserves its own paragraph. A pistachio-and-knafeh bar invented by a pregnant entrepreneur in Dubai, it went viral on TikTok in December 2023 and became, by 2024, one of the most-ordered food items on earth.67 South Africa caught the bug hard — and, tellingly, the Western Cape caught it first and hardest.
National search demand for "Dubai chocolate".
The takeaway: A textbook viral curve: essentially flat until late 2023, then near-vertical. This is what a TikTok trend looks like when it hits a whole country at once.
Watch for the plateau forming — viral peaks always normalise. But the underlying flavour (pistachio) is sticking around in lattes, cakes and spreads; it was crowned a flavour of 2025 and even triggered a global pistachio shortage.2223
| Fading trend | Category | Change |
|---|---|---|
| Gangsta rap | Music | −83% |
| Gqom | Music | −74% |
| Generator hire | Party economy | −59% |
| Food festivals | Events | −57% |
| Drip cakes | Food | −56% |
| Music festivals | Events | −54% |
| Unicorn cakes / parties | Kids' parties | −48% |
| Stand-up comedy | Nightlife | −44% |
| Gender reveals | Celebrations | −39% |
Read that list as a group and a theme jumps out: the over-produced, the ticketed and the once-novel are all fading at once. The 2010s party — the big festival, the elaborate themed cake, the gender reveal — is being quietly retired.
The cocktail-ification of South Africa
If you want one phrase for how the country drinks now, it's "make it a cocktail". The humble shot is being replaced by the photogenic, slightly-sweet, R120 cocktail.
National search demand, three signature drinks.
The takeaway: Pornstar martini (+560%), espresso martini (+98%) and Aperol spritz (+92%) all surged. The pornstar martini is now one of the most-searched drinks in the country.
These are aspirational, Instagrammable drinks. Their rise says more about how South Africans want to be seen drinking than about thirst.
National search demand for tequila and cognac.
The takeaway: Tequila searches +118% and cognac +82%. Premium brown and agave spirits are eating the middle of the market.
This is the single strongest argument against "South Africans are drinking less". They're drinking more expensively — exactly the global premiumisation pattern IWSR tracks for agave spirits.1112
The sober paradox
So is the wellness wave fake? Not quite — and this is where you have to read two numbers together, not one. "Sober-curious" grew +203%. Mocktails +58%. Non-alcoholic beer +45%. Matcha +61%. Kombucha +57%. Those are real, healthy growth rates.
But look at the scale. "Sober-curious" went from a tiny base to a still-tiny 244 average monthly searches nationally. Tequila is searched roughly 950× more often. South Africa is sober-curious in its New Year's resolutions and tequila-committed by February.
4-year growth rates (%). High growth, low base for the wellness set.
The takeaway: Sober-curious "wins" on growth rate (+203%) but the cocktails and spirits next to it are operating at 100–1,000× the actual volume.
A classic trap: a percentage can scream "movement" while the absolute numbers whisper "niche". Both things are true at once.
The genuinely weird
Pool is back. So is the bento cake. RIP the unicorn.
The brief was to find the stuff that makes you stop scrolling. Here's our favourite: cue sports are having a full-blown revival.
National search demand for pool, snooker and darts venues.
The takeaway: Pool tables near me +83%, snooker near me +63%, darts near me +99%. The pub games your dad loved are cool again.
It fits the bigger pattern perfectly: cheap, social, walk-in, no ticket required. The neighbourhood-venue revival has a soundtrack of clacking balls.
And then there's cake. The 2010s were the decade of the elaborate cake — drip cakes, unicorn cakes, towering fondant chaos. South Africa has dumped all of it for the bento cake: a tiny, minimalist, one-person cake-in-a-takeaway-box — the Korean "no-share" dessert that went global during the pandemic.24
National search demand for bento, drip and unicorn cakes.
The takeaway: Bento cakes rocketed +500%+ while drip cakes (−56%) and unicorn cakes (−48%) faded. Smaller, cheaper, cuter and more personal beat bigger and flashier.
The bento cake is the perfect 2026 object: budget-friendly, single-serving, hyper-personalised and built for a phone camera.
Music: the sound of a country changing channel
Genres die fast. Gqom — the hard Durban sound that ruled the late 2010s — is down −74%. Gangsta rap −83%. Meanwhile afro-house is up +35% and amapiano has matured into the steady, dominant heartbeat of South African nightlife — the same genre that was born in Gauteng's townships and now pulls 1.4 billion-plus Spotify streams a year and 10 billion-plus TikTok views.1617
National search demand for afro-house, amapiano and gqom.
The takeaway: Amapiano has plateaued at the top (a sign of dominance, not decline), afro-house is still climbing, and gqom has all but collapsed.
A genre "flattening" at a huge volume is what winning looks like — it stops being a trend and becomes the water everyone swims in.
The main event
The Provincial Championships 🏆
Now the fun part. Fourteen titles, decided purely on per-capita search demand. No mercy, no stereotypes — just the numbers. Some of these you'll nod at. At least two should make you blink.
Searches per million residents per month for "braai".
The takeaway: The Western Cape edges Gauteng on braai search demand, and coastal KZN finishes a clear last.
A reminder that "obvious" cultural truths often crumble the moment you measure them per person.
The drinks cabinet, province by province
Drinking is where the three personalities separate most violently. The Cape drinks to taste, Gauteng drinks to feel something, and KZN drinks to have fun.
Searches per million residents per month (wine + wine tasting).
The takeaway: It's not a contest. The Western Cape searches for wine and wine-tasting at nearly 3× Gauteng and over 8× KZN.
The only stereotype the data fully endorses without an asterisk. South Africa's ~86,500 ha of vineyards are overwhelmingly in the Cape — wine country knows it's wine country.1819
Searches per million residents per month (cognac + champagne + tequila + Jägermeister).
The takeaway: Gauteng leads on the hard, premium, celebratory end — cognac, champagne and Jäger especially. This is bottle-service energy.
Pair this with the casino and energy-drink wins and a picture forms: Gauteng chases intensity.
Searches per million residents per month (Prime + energy drinks).
The takeaway: Gauteng tops energy-drink demand at 9,791 per million — and KZN, at 2,120, barely registers by comparison.
The hustle is literally measurable. The fastest province is also the most caffeinated one.
Searches per million residents per month (Flying Fish + Brutal Fruit + Savanna).
The takeaway: KZN over-indexes on flavoured, sweet, easy-drinking RTDs and ciders harder than any province over-indexes on anything else in the entire dataset.
Flying Fish at 4.4× and Brutal Fruit at 3.4× the national norm is an identity, not a preference — and it mirrors the national market, where SAB confirms ciders and sweet flavoured beers are the fastest-growing alcohol category.1314
Searches per million residents per month (coffee + espresso + coffee bars).
The takeaway: The Western Cape's café obsession is real and measurable — 38,608 per million, more than double Gauteng.
Coffee bars were also one of the fastest-growing categories nationally (+109%). The flat white is no longer a Cape Town joke; it's a Cape Town industry.
National search demand for "coffee bars".
The takeaway: Searches for coffee bars more than doubled (+109%) over four years — café culture is going national, not just Cape.
Coffee is quietly becoming a social venue category in its own right, competing with the pub for the catch-up.
Searches per million residents per month for "gin bar".
The takeaway: The Western Cape searches for gin bars 14× more than Gauteng and 35× more than KZN. A hyper-local obsession.
Gin bars are the perfect Cape product: craft-led, aesthetic, slightly fancy, made for a slow afternoon.
Growth in total drink-search demand, 2022 → 2026.
The takeaway: Every province's drink interest grew — but the Western Cape grew fastest (+29%), ahead of Gauteng (+20%) and KZN (+13%).
Against the global "we're all cutting back" narrative, South Africa's drink curiosity expanded everywhere. The Cape just expanded it hardest.
| Drink | Gauteng | Western Cape | KZN | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wine | 10,671 | 26,230 | 3,466 | 🟢 W. Cape |
| Coffee | 15,605 | 25,979 | 5,399 | 🟢 W. Cape |
| Cognac | 9,648 | 4,609 | 3,497 | 🟡 Gauteng |
| Tequila | 7,983 | 6,649 | 2,422 | 🟡 Gauteng |
| Gin & tonic | 11,627 | 12,245 | 4,176 | 🟢 W. Cape |
| Gin bars | 43 | 605 | 17 | 🟢 W. Cape |
| Flying Fish | 294 | 181 | 2,036 | 🔵 KZN |
| Brutal Fruit | 784 | 451 | 2,036 | 🔵 KZN |
| Prime / energy drinks | 6,019 | 4,331 | 522 | 🟡 Gauteng |
On the table: how each province eats
Searches per million residents per month.
The takeaway: The Western Cape leads sushi, dim sum, poke bowls and matcha — it adopts new and international food faster than anywhere else.
Pair with the highest Dubai-chocolate affinity in the country: the Cape is South Africa's trend-adoption lab.
Searches per million residents per month (high tea + wine tasting + gin bars).
The takeaway: On the genteel end — high tea, wine tasting, gin bars — the Western Cape scores 25,994 vs Gauteng's 1,361. A 19× gap.
If a province had a monocle, this would be the chart.
| Food | Gauteng | Western Cape | KZN | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sushi | 5,358 | 9,981 | 1,784 | 🟢 W. Cape |
| High tea | 429 | 20,183 | ~0 | 🟢 W. Cape |
| Braai | 3,719 | 4,136 | 1,473 | 🟢 W. Cape |
| Biltong | 3,719 | 2,787 | 478 | 🟡 Gauteng |
| Pizza | 21,745 | 17,915 | 7,632 | 🟡 Gauteng |
| Dubai chocolate | 1,572 | 2,594 | 732 | 🟢 W. Cape |
After dark & out the house
Searches per million residents per month.
The takeaway: Gauteng leads casino search demand, with the Western Cape close behind and KZN a distant third.
It tracks the till too: Gauteng generates the single largest provincial share of casino gambling revenue in the country, and national gambling spend hit R1.1-trillion in 2023/24.2021
Searches per million residents per month.
The takeaway: KZN tops food markets at 24,432 per million — more than double the Western Cape. A genuinely unexpected win for the coast.
Food markets are social, outdoor, family-friendly and cheap-entry. They fit KZN's warm, communal, walk-in social style perfectly.
Searches per million residents per month (adventure parks + karting + bowling + escape rooms).
The takeaway: With no ocean and no mountain, Gauteng manufactures its entertainment — and dominates every "built activity" category.
Geography is destiny. The Cape has Table Mountain; KZN has the beach; Gauteng has go-karts and an indoor adventure park in a mall.
Searches per million residents per month (amapiano + afro-house + house + deep house).
The takeaway: Gauteng searches dance music most per person — but KZN over-indexes hardest on amapiano and afro-house relative to its own baseline.
Both can be true: Joburg is the biggest market; Durban is the most genre-devoted. The soundsystem coast earns its name.
| Activity | Gauteng | Western Cape | KZN | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Casino | 44,239 | 35,898 | 12,458 | 🟡 Gauteng |
| Adventure park | 7,673 | 1,036 | 518 | 🟡 Gauteng |
| Food market | 9,619 | 11,488 | 24,432 | 🔵 KZN |
| Wine tasting | 896 | 5,207 | 243 | 🟢 W. Cape |
| Business networking | 1,158 | 974 | 2,852 | 🔵 KZN |
| Nightclub near me | 7,421 | 5,087 | — | 🟡 Gauteng |
| Genre | Gauteng | Western Cape | KZN | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Amapiano | 5,387 | 3,276 | 2,851 | KZN over-indexes most |
| Afro-house | 6,258 | 2,174 | 3,829 | KZN strong #2 |
| Rap | 13,129 | 10,269 | 4,702 | National favourite |
| Rock | 2,958 | 3,901 | 1,044 | 🟢 Cape lean |
| Trap | 337 | 2,399 | 168 | 🟢 Very Cape |
| Gospel | 8,402 | 9,376 | 3,911 | Cape & GP tie |
If the provinces were people
Three personalities, drawn entirely from data
Gauteng — “The Caffeinated Hustler” 🟡
Over-indexes on: adventure parks (1.7×) · energy drinks (1.3×) · cognac, Jäger & champagne · casinosGauteng is the friend who books the go-karting, brings the energy drinks, orders the cognac and wants to "go somewhere after this". Landlocked and fast, it manufactures its fun — built activities, casinos, strong spirits and the loudest per-capita appetite for stimulation in the country. It searches less for wine and coffee than the Cape, and it doesn't care. It's not here to taste; it's here to feel something.
Western Cape — “The Slow-Living Aesthete” 🟢
Over-indexes on: wine tasting (2.5×) · concert venues (2.6×) · trap (2.5×) · sushi · coffee · book clubsThe Cape is the friend with strong opinions about the wine list and the coffee roast, who's already been to the new sushi place and read the book everyone's about to read. The smallest of the three provinces but the most active planner of all, it leads wine, coffee, high tea, sushi and almost every "refined" or trend-forward category — and, surprisingly, even the braai. It's also quietly bookish and into live music. Slow living, done with taste and a slightly raised eyebrow.
KwaZulu-Natal — “The Warm Social Host” 🔵
Over-indexes on: Flying Fish (4.4×) · Brutal Fruit (3.4×) · networking (3.2×) · food markets (3.1×) · afro-house & amapianoKZN plans the least online and lives the most spontaneously — but when it commits, it commits to people. It owns sweet, easy-drinking RTDs, the food market, the wedding and the networking event, all set to amapiano and afro-house. It's the warmest, most communal, most "everyone's invited" province in the data: less about the perfect cocktail or the perfect cabernet, more about who's coming and whether there's cake. (There is always cake — KZN over-indexes on birthday and wedding cake too.)
| Gauteng | Western Cape | KZN | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Arrives | First, already buzzing | Fashionably late, with notes on the venue | With six extra people |
| Orders | Tequila, then a Jägerbomb | A glass of the pinotage | Flying Fish & a pornstar martini |
| Wants to | Go somewhere after | Find the quiet corner | Introduce everyone to everyone |
| Pays for | The activity | The experience | The whole table |
| Leaves | Last, via the casino | When the wine runs out | Never — it became a wedding |
The forecast
Where the trends are heading next 🔮
Trend momentum isn't destiny, but it's a strong hint. Based on four years of trajectory, here's what we'd bet on for the next 18 months.
National search demand for cue-sport venues (pool + snooker + darts + pool halls) with trend line.
The takeaway: The trend line points firmly up. Cheap, social, walk-in venues are the structural winner of the post-loadshedding era.
If you're opening a venue in 2026, the data says: pool tables, a darts board, decent cocktails, amapiano on the speakers — not a R500 cover charge.
The verdict
What four years of party data says about us
Strip away the rivalry and a single national story emerges, and it's an optimistic one. South Africa is not a country hunkered down at home, drinking less and celebrating quietly. It's a country that, the moment the lights came back on, went straight back out — to the pub, the pool table, the food market, the casino, the wine farm and the wedding. We're drinking a little fancier, celebrating a little smaller and more often, and chasing experiences over stuff.
And the provinces? They didn't converge into one bland national taste. If anything they got more themselves. Gauteng doubled down on intensity. The Cape doubled down on taste. KZN doubled down on warmth. Three provinces, three completely different ideas of a good time — and a country that, against every gloomy headline, still very much knows how to have one.
The braai belongs to the Cape, the casino to Joburg, and the dance floor to Durban. We didn't decide that. 6,037 search trends did.
- Source. Aggregated search-demand for 6,037 keywords, monthly, June 2022 – May 2026, across South Africa and the Gauteng, Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal regions.
- Cleaning. 670 duplicate/placeholder series were removed before analysis. Growth figures compare the first 12 months to the most recent 12.
- Fairness. Province comparisons are normalised per million residents using Census 2022 populations.1
- Caveat. Search interest signals intent and curiosity, not till-level consumption. KZN's lower overall search intensity may partly reflect a more spontaneous, less plan-online culture rather than less activity.
References & further reading
Search-demand figures are PartyTrends' own analysis of the dataset described in the methodology box above. The sources below corroborate the real-world context, industry trends and external facts referenced throughout the article.
Population & the fair-comparison baseline
- Statistics South Africa, Census 2022 Population Count Results (10 Oct 2023) — Gauteng 15,099,422; KwaZulu-Natal 12,423,907; Western Cape 7,433,019; the three provinces hold ~56% of South Africans. statssa.gov.za
- Statistics South Africa, 2022 Provincial Profiles (Report 03-01-74) — detailed provincial population and household figures used for per-capita normalisation. statssa.gov.za (PDF)
Load-shedding & the "going out" recovery
- Eskom, Load-shedding suspended since 26 March 2024 (Generation Recovery Plan updates, Jan 2025) — explains the collapse in generator-hire demand. eskom.co.za
- Daily Maverick, Eskom marks 300 days without load shedding — a first since 2018 (21 Jan 2025). dailymaverick.co.za
- FTI Consulting, Out of the Darkness: Economic Costs of Load-Shedding — 205 shedding days in 2022, 335 in 2023, just 83 in 2024, ~12 in early 2025. fticonsulting.com
Viral food: Dubai chocolate, pistachio & bento cakes
- BBC Travel, How Dubai chocolate conquered the world (May 2025) — Fix Dessert Chocolatier; viral via TikTok in Dec 2023 (125m+ views). bbc.com
- CNN Travel, Meet the woman behind Dubai's viral super-chunky chocolate bar. cnn.com
- Food & Wine, Pistachio Is the Flavor of 2025 — and We Have a Viral TikTok Trend to Thank — Google pistachio searches doubled; Dubai-chocolate ripple effect. foodandwine.com
- The Guardian, TikTok trend for 'Dubai chocolate' causes international shortage of pistachios (Apr 2025) — evidence the pistachio flavour is outliving the bar. theguardian.com
- The Daily Meal, What Are Bento Cakes And Where Did They Come From? — Korean "no-share" single-serving cakes that went global during the pandemic. thedailymeal.com
Drinking habits, moderation & the "sober" myth
- IWSR, Gen Z NOT the generation of moderation, survey reveals (Jun 2025) — Gen Z drinking participation rebounded to 73%, broadly in line with all adults; supports our "South Africa isn't going sober" reading. theiwsr.com
- IWSR, How is the moderation trend evolving? — no/low-alcohol participation context; moderation is real but consumption is "not in a tailspin." theiwsr.com
- IWSR, How will the agave price crash impact tequila? — global tequila/agave premiumisation, the backdrop to our +118% tequila finding. theiwsr.com
- The Spirits Business, World Spirits Report 2025: Tequila & mezcal — agave spirits outperform the wider (declining) alcohol market; Teremana set to launch in South Africa. thespiritsbusiness.com
Ciders, RTDs & KZN's sweet-drink signature
- Business Day, Beyond beer: SAB sees consumers' appetites changing (Aug 2025) — SAB confirms ciders and sweet flavoured beers (incl. Flying Fish, Brutal Fruit) growing faster than beer, wine and spirits. businessday.co.za
- Kantar BrandZ, Banking and Brews: South Africa's Top Brands — Flying Fish brand value +12% and Brutal Fruit +15%, among the fastest-growing SA brands. kantar.com
- Euromonitor International, RTDs in South Africa — "strong demand for RTDs"; Brutal Fruit and Bernini dominate; buoyant outlook. euromonitor.com
Music: amapiano, afro-house & genre churn
- Spotify Newsroom, Piano to the World: Amapiano's Evolution (Jun 2024) — 1.4bn+ streams in 2023; born in Gauteng's townships; 55% of streams still from South Africa. spotify.com
- GRAMMY.com, Amapiano's Decade-Long Journey to Global Dominance — born in Pretoria/Johannesburg; #Amapiano has 10bn+ TikTok views. grammy.com
Wine & the Western Cape
- Wines of South Africa (WOSA) / SAWIS, SA Wine Industry Overview — ~86,500 ha under vine, overwhelmingly in the Western Cape; SA is the world's 8th-largest producer. wosa.co.za
- Daily Maverick, South Africa's wine industry: worrying trends emerge — wine concentrated in the Western Cape, adding ~R50.9bn to provincial GDP; wine tourism R9.3bn in 2022. dailymaverick.co.za
Casinos & gambling
- National Gambling Board, National Gambling Statistics FY2023/24 — casino GGR R17.4bn; Gauteng generates the single largest provincial share of casino GGR (45.5%), ahead of KZN and the Western Cape. ngb.org.za
- TimesLIVE, South Africans wagered R1.1-trillion in local gambling in a year (Dec 2024) — total gambling GGR up 25.7% to R59.3bn. timeslive.co.za
Data & method
- PartyTrends, Methodology & data sources — how our search-demand dataset is built and cleaned. partytrends.co.za/methodology
- Wikipedia, List of South African provinces by population (Census 2022 cross-check). wikipedia.org