Lagos, firm partner on cultural festival

The Hope Collective Limited has announced its partnership with the Lagos State Council for Arts and Culture to host the maiden edition of the Rhythm of Lagos Cultural Festival.

The event, according to a Wednesday statement, is a cultural celebration designed to showcase the vibrancy, creativity, and unity of Lagos through arts, dance, food, and heritage.

The Director of THC, Samson Agboola, said the festival would be a year-long cultural movement spread across 100 locations in Lagos.

It is expected to feature over 500,000 residents participating in live shows, creative workshops, culinary exhibitions, and performances that promote Lagos as a melting pot of Nigerian culture.

He added that the initiative would also launch a youth-driven creative competition titled “My Arts, My Culture Creation Competition”, which seeks to engage art students from universities and senior secondary schools in producing over 1,000 new Yoruba-inspired artifacts.

The statement noted that the competition would run from November 2025 to February 2026, encouraging participants to reinterpret traditional cultural motifs into modern, functional art pieces across fashion, sculpture, digital art, musical instruments, and scripts.

Agboola said the festival is projected to attract 5,000 participants via digital check-ins, engage 5,000 youths in art, dance, and culinary activities, and register at least 1,000 original artifacts.

The event will parade the 100 student-created artifacts, crown national dance and culinary champions, and include a live auction of limited-edition artifacts to fund youth scholarships.

Agboola described the festival as a transformational project designed to reawaken cultural pride among Lagosians and Nigerians at large.

“The Rhythm of Lagos is not just a festival, it is a movement that celebrates who we are, unites our communities, and creates a platform for the next generation of cultural innovators,” he said.

He added that through the collaboration with the Lagos State Council for Arts and Culture, THC aims to make Lagos the cultural capital of Africa by promoting inclusive, creative, and sustainable cultural engagement among its citizens.