We have gathered and analysed a timeseries of 1493 high-quality multicolour Geneva photometric data of the B3V β Cep star HD 129929. The dataset has a time base of 21.2 years. The occurrence of a beating phenomenon is evident from the data. We find evidence for the presence of at least six frequencies, among which we see components of two frequency multiplets with an average spacing of ˜0.0121 c d-1 which points towards very slow rotation. This result is in agreement with new spectroscopic data of the star and also with previously taken UV spectra. We provide the amplitudes of the six frequencies in all seven photometric filters. The metal content of the star is Z=0.018± 0.004. All these observational results will be used to perform detailed seismic modelling of this massive star in a subsequent paper. Based on data gathered with the Swiss 0.7m telescope equipped with the photometer P7 of the Geneva Observatory and with the FEROS spectrograph attached to the ESO 2.2 m telescope, both situated at La Silla in Chile; the reduced photometric multicolour data are provided in Table 1, which is only available in electronic form at the CDS via anonymous ftp to cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr (130.79.128.5) or via http://cdsweb.u-strasbg.fr/cgi-bin/qcat?J/A+A/415/241