The inaugural LLF, was held on the 23rd and 24th of February at the Alhamra Arts Complex, with aims to revive the spirit of art and creativity in Lahore. The festival is a first step in re-establishing Lahore as the cultural heartbeat of Pakistan and enriching the cultural experience of the city’s residents by creating an institutional platform for fostering and furthering Lahore’s literary traditions. According to certain estimates around 30,000 people attended the two day festival.
As part of its support for the Festival and Lahore’s revival as Pakistan’s cultural capital, Wateen Telecom provided guests and visitors at the event with continuous high-speed wireless broadband. About 2,000 people per day took advantage of free Wi-Fi Hotspots that was being provided by Wateen Telecom at the Alhamra Arts Complex for the Lahore Literary Festival (LLF). At this two-day highly successful event more than 4,000 people registered for the service, which they used to download and upload content utilizing Wateen’s continuous high-speed wireless broadband.
In addition, Wateen placed experiential kiosks specially designed for the Literary Festival at the venue. The kiosks, known as ‘Freedom Booths’, had laptops fitted with web cameras through which visitors recorded their video messages about their experiences at the Festival.
Commenting on Wateen’s involvement with the Festival, Mr. Naeem Zamindar, CEO Wateen Telecom, said, “The Lahore Literary Festival was great event not only for those involved but for the citizens of Lahore. All of us got a chance to attend some amazing sessions on literature, culture, history and art. We at Wateen are proud of the fact that we facilitated those who attended the Festival by enabling them to blog, tweet, post pictures and share videos from the festival with not only their friends and loved ones but everyone across the globe.”
As a further commitment to supporting the arts, Wateen permanently donate the necessary WiFi equipment to the Alhamra Arts Complex for continued future use.
