Taking over Livespot Entertarium, Eko Hotel, EbonyLife Place and Alliance Française, the festival’s first edition set a powerful foundation for pan-African creative mobility and global cultural exchange.
●28,683 attendees across 8+ countries and 50+ industries attended EWA2025.
● Five multi-venue hubs: Livespot Entertarium, Eko Hotel, EbonyLife Place, Alliance Française and Heritage Place.
● 150+ speakers; 61 sessions; 93 films screened; 20 music showcases; 9 fashion showcases; 9 tech startups (Deal Room); 10 Hackathon companies; 8 Soundlab producers, 8 Soundlab songwriters, 8 content market partners; 6 music market partners including Empire and Virgin Music.
● 5 million+ online engagements and 800 million+ digital reach and impressions across Asia, Africa, North America, and Europe.
● Entertainment Week Africa was visited by numerous leaders including The Minister of Trade, and Investment, Jumoke Oduwole, British Deputy High Commissioner Johnny Baxter, First Lady of Kwara State, Olufolake Abdulrazaq, Tiwa Savage, Don Jazzy, Yemi Alade, Waje, Sasha P, and more. The Commissioner for Culture and Tourism Lagos says event “showed what’s possible when passionate voices from across the creative industries are brought together”
Over the six days of the festival (18th – 23rd November) EWA welcomed 28,683 pass-holders from 8+ countries and over 50 different industries across its conference, screen, music and interdisciplinary creator programme.
The top four countries to visit the festival including Nigeria were Ghana, Senegal, Kenya, and the UK. Passes to the inaugural event were bought by 51 different industries, with the highest attendance from entertainment; creators; advertising; music; technology; media; marketing; filmmaking, business consulting; events; design; public relations & communication services.
This year’s theme, “Close the Gap,” served as both a challenge and a blueprint, uniting talent, capital, policy and platforms in one ecosystem. Livespot360’s Managing Director Tiwa Medubi underscored this in her closing remarks:
“This year, under the theme ‘Close the Gap,’ we set out to do something very specific: bring talent, capital, policy and platforms into the same room – not in theory, but in practice.” She added: “Across every lab, panel, showcase, screening and performance, one thing was clear: the gap between potential and reality is closing, because people are doing the work.”
Opening Night drew dignitaries including British Deputy High Commissioner Johnny Baxter; the First Lady of Kwara State Her Excellency Olufolake Abdulrazaq; Commissioner for Tourism, Arts & Culture, Toke Benson Awoyinka, Minister of Trade & Investment, Jumoke Oduwole, and more. British Deputy High Commissioner, Jonny Baxter emphasised the festival’s diplomatic and economic significance: “Entertainment Week Africa represents a week of celebration, partnership and progress… By Closing The Gap, we’re not just building bridges; we’re creating highways for ideas, talent and investments to flow freely between Nigeria and the UK.”
EWA delivered more than 35 panels, 22 workshops, 20 masterclasses, and 93 film screenings, tackling themes like distribution pipelines, creative entrepreneurship, emerging technology, youth culture, and cross-border mobility. Creators and young professionals moved fluidly through the Creators Hub, Creative Job Fair, Gen Z Republic, and the EWA Creative Marketplace. Film highlights included Chronicles of Afrobeat, The Herd, Dust to Dream, and Mama Nike & Magazine Dreams, accompanied by high-demand director sessions.
A 4-day intensive Story Lab workshop for aspiring writers, facilitated by Lani Aisida, Nicole Asinugo and Dami Elebe, and supported by Netflix, Amazon Prime, NdaniTV and Africa Magic. 15 contenders shortlisted to 8 participants, producing 6 polished loglines and pitch-ready story concepts.
The Deal Room embodied the theme “Close The Gap”: four days of mentorship, readiness labs and investor sessions. It received 178+ entries, with 9 companies making it to the accelerator programme after a series of interviews.
Four of these companies: Aktivate, FriendnPal, Growwr and Sports Reels, were identified as fully ready to scale, each attracting investor interest in the room. Beyond the numbers, founders hit key milestones: for many, it was their first time pitching to investors.
In parallel, the Hackathon extended this impact through two days of product refinement, where 10 teams were selected to build and iterate rapidly. Three standout companies; Musetter (Music Tech), Owambe (Fashion Tech) and Alaba (Music Tech) emerged from the sprint. Investors supporting the Deal Room and Hackathon included Future Africa, Askya Investment Partners, Catalyst Fund and Consonance Invest.
In a landmark gender-equity conversation with Yemi Alade, Waje, Qing Madi, Teni, Sasha P, Tiwa Savage spotlighted representation gaps: “Out of the top 100 songs in Nigeria on Apple Music, there’s only one female song… The gap is too wide, we need to balance the scale.” Music executive Don Jazzy added: “We’re too masculine… It affects the numbers, the airplay, the clubs”.
Fashion programming also took centre stage, with 120+ entries, 10 emerging designers, all of whom showcased on the EWA Runway Coterie stage spotlighting designers such as Korede James, Dust of the Earth, Nex by Necca, Josh Amor, PK Crochet, Estaz, David Black, Bernard Samuel and Sevon Dejana, each presenting forward-thinking interpretations of contemporary African style.
The week also featured celebratory cultural moments, including Jokes & Jollof, where Lucky Chidiebere Obi, winner of Big Spoon 2025, received a ₦1 million prize and the announcement of his upcoming tour with Basketmouth.
EWA 2025 was made possible through the support of its sponsors, venue, industry, content, music market, and media partners, including Livespot, Rent-A-Rig, Heineken, Lagos State Tourism, Pepsi, MTN, TikTok, British High Commission, High Commission of Canada, US Embassy, Essenza, Multichoice; venue partners Eko Hotel, EbonyLife Place, Alliance Française, Livespot Entertarium; industry partners Blu Pictures, Netflix, Amazon Prime, NdaniTV, Africa Magic, Choc City, ONErpm, Vuga Music, Alec, Mad Solutions; content market partners Blue Pictures Entertainment, Circuits Global Solutions, Africa Magic, Showmax, MTN, Wonder Media Kind, MBO Capital, Regal Stone Capital; music market partners Xchange, Empire, ONErpm, Virgin
Music, WeTalkSound, Chocolate City; and media partners Rollingstone Africa, TechCabal, Marie Claire, WeTalkSound, Business Insider Africa, News Central TV, Culture Custodian, Business Day, BellaNaija, Olori Supergirl, Nollywire, Amplify Africa, Trace, CoolFM.
Founder of Entertainment Week Africa, Deola Art Alade said: “Our ambition over the coming years is for Entertainment Week Africa to establish itself as a critical part of the economic, intellectual and artistic capital of this great city. We’re delighted with the first steps towards that.”
The festival returns from November 17–22, 2026, themed “Closing the Gap,” with expanded pan-African programming and a continued commitment to accelerating creative-industry growth across the continent. Registration is now open on our website.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source africa.businessinsider.com ’
