Affectionately called the Festival of Celebration within the arts community, the 1984 Festival marked the 10th anniversary of the National Arts Festival. It was also the beginning of a long and mutually beneficial partnership with Standard Bank, who took over as the primary sponsors. Now known as The Standard Bank National Festival of the Arts, the scale of the Festival programme increased dramatically, both to celebrate the achievement of a decade’s worth of dedication to the Arts, and as a result of how popular the festival had become with artists and audience members alike. 

In tribute to its origins and early years, much of the main theatre programme was dedicated to contemporary interpretations of the classics, including performances of Julius Caesar, an assorted collection of Rattigan, and an evening of mime with Andrew Buckland, drawing of characters, themes and scenarios from the collected works of Shakespeare. 

The SABC Chamber Choir gave a concert by candlelight, with the now-legendary Richard Cock conducting for the first time in the festival’s history, and The Zamani Arts group presented “Poems of the Re-Awakening.” Despite already having achieved great praise and popularity, they joked that they merely “write lines in our scrap books and become happy when people call them poetry and publish them!”

The Festival of Celebration also marked a new zenith in the growth of the Fringe Programme, with 163 theatrical performances, 53 musical performances, 19 dance performances, 20 arts and crafts exhibitions, 6 film events, 6 historical tours, and a 10 day wine festival. Whilst this might seem rather tame to audiences familiar with the scale of the Fringe today, it represented a level of success that the Festival organisers 10 years previously could hardly have dared to hope for.