We have spent twenty years proving that culture pays.
Culturati is a culture and arts platform built in Lagos. We run Africa’s longest standing culture and arts festival, we train young people in the trades that culture actually runs on, and we keep one room where traditional rulers, embassies, government and the creative street are all comfortable. This page is who we are, what we have built, and where we are going.
Twenty editions. One line, unbroken.
Touch or hover a threadIt starts as Sisi Oge, a cultural movement dressed as a pageant, built to give young Lagosians something to be seen for.
It began with a pageant and a problem.
The problem was jobs. In 2006, Lagos was full of young people with taste, talent and no route to money.
Our answer was Sisi Oge. On the surface it was a pageant. Underneath it was an argument: that Lagos style, Lagos language and Lagos identity were worth something, and that young people could build a living on them. It ran for over a decade. Some of the faces you now watch on Nollywood screens came through that stage first.
After ten years the format was too small for the idea. Culture had stopped being a side show and started becoming an industry, so we widened the frame to take in arts, craft, fashion, food, music, tourism and enterprise. Sisi Oge became Culturati.
Nineteen editions later, what we said in 2006 has become conventional wisdom. The world now looks to Africa for what is next. We are glad about that. We were here before the agreement, and we intend to be here long after the trend moves on.
Culture is currency. Our job is to help people spend it.
Our mission
Turn African culture into work, income and standing for the people who carry it. Three things, and we count all three.
- Keep the heritage in use.Culture that is not practised quietly disappears. We give it stages, markets and audiences, so the drum, the loom and the dye pit stay in working hands.
- Put young people to work.Culture is labour intensive, which in a country with our unemployment figures is an advantage rather than a problem. We train, place and fund.
- Bring the investment in.Culture and tourism carry close to one in every ten jobs worldwide. Nigeria’s share of that is far below what our culture is worth. Closing that gap is the whole business.
Where we are going
By the twenty fifth edition we intend Culturati to be the reference point for the African culture economy. Four working parts, running all year.
- A festival the calendar plans around.Eight days every November, in Lagos, that the diaspora books flights for.
- An academy at scale.Five thousand young people a year, trained in craft, technology and creative enterprise, then tracked into real income.
- A marketplace that clears.Artisans and designers selling to buyers on the ground and online, all year, not only in festival week.
- A number the market trusts.An annual published index of what African culture is worth, so investors stop guessing.
Five things, and they feed each other.
The festival brings the crowd. The academy makes the work. The marketplace sells it. The awards give it standing. The report tells the money what it is worth.
The Festival
Africa’s longest standing culture and arts festival. Music, arts, fashion, food, cultural display, exhibitions and a working marketplace. Nineteen editions delivered. The twentieth runs for eight days.
Culturati Academy
Free training in the trades culture runs on: adire, aso oke, beadwork, basket weaving, shoemaking, sculpture, metal work, fashion, photography, videography and digital marketing. Graduates get placement, grants and, where it counts, scholarships.
Culturati Marketplace
Where the work gets sold. Artisans, designers, food makers and creators trade with real buyers on site and online, with our festival currency, Culturati Tokens, running alongside naira.
African Personalities of the Year
Every year we name and honour one hundred people whose work carries African culture forward, from master artists with fifty years behind them to discoveries with everything ahead.
Symposium and Cultural Report
Panels and research on culture as economy, diplomacy, tourism and identity. From November 2026 we publish the Culturati Cultural Report, an annual index of the Lagos heritage economy.
The Cultural Drape
Cultural costume treated as a competitive stage, in four categories: brands, individuals, families and universities. It becomes a standalone annual event from 2027.
The numbers, plainly.
Figures in gold are delivered results to the end of the nineteenth edition, December 2025. Figures in green are 2026 targets.
Trust, and a pipeline that works.
Anybody can rent a venue and hang a banner. What is harder is the room. Culturati is one of the few gatherings in Lagos where an oba, an ambassador, a commissioner and a twenty year old skit maker are all comfortable on the same evening, and where all four have a reason to be there.
We honoured people before it was fashionable to honour them. Over the years the roll has included:
- Bruce Onobrakpeya
- Nike Davies-Okundaye
- Benson Idonije
- Helen Prest-Ajayi
- Lola Shoneyin
- MUDI Africa
- Pelu Awofeso
- Toyin Lawani
- Levi Ajuonuma, posthumously
On the other side of the platform, more than fourteen thousand young people have come through the Academy. Some now run shops. Some print fabric, cut shoes, string beads, shoot weddings or edit reels for a living. A few have been placed inside established industries and kept there. That is the part of the work that never makes a headline and matters most.
We do it alongside the Lagos State Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture, the Federal Ministry of Art, Culture, Tourism and the Creative Economy, and the Lagos Cultural Mission.
Culturati at 20. Eight days, four phases.
The twentieth edition is built as one landmark programme of culture, commerce and ceremony. Order matters here, so we run it in sequence.
Lekki Arts and Crafts Market
The Exhibition
Twenty years made walkable. A photographic and artefact archive of the full journey, Academy work on display and for sale, twenty commissioned portraits of lives that changed, and daily live craft demonstrations by master artisans.
Open to the public · targeting 2,000+ visitorsPremium Lagos venue
The Opening
Invitation only. A diplomatic reception with the Lagos Cultural Mission, the formal declaration of Culturati at 20, the Culture Address on the state of African culture and its economic weight, then the Heritage Cocktail.
Government, embassies, cultural leaders · 300 to 500 guestsCity wide
Culture Forward Day
The most varied day of the week and the most public. The Culture Forward Summit, the No English Zone where you speak your mother tongue or nothing at all, the full Marketplace, the Village of Sounds, the University Cultural Drape, and a Content House built for creators.
Open to the public · 2,000 to 3,000 expectedOriental Hotel, Lagos
The Grand Anniversary
The Cultural Drape across four categories, the 100 Personalities ceremony, the Legacy Awards for twenty year contributors, the Grand Fashion Show, headline performances from traditional to Afrobeats, and the first Culturati Cultural Report.
Invited guests · 800 to 1,000 expected
November 2026 is the beginning, not the destination.
- The Cultural Drape goes soloEstablished as its own annual event, then taken to new cities from 2027.
- A published cultural indexThe Culturati Cultural Report, out every November, tracking the heritage economy in numbers people can act on.
- The twenty year documentaryA feature length film of the full story, built for digital distribution and a global audience.
- Pan African, then diasporaThe platform travels. London, New York, Accra and beyond, starting 2027.
- The Academy at scaleFive thousand young people a year across technology, arts and culture, and creative industry.
- The alumni network, formalisedFourteen thousand five hundred trained people turned into one working community of cultural entrepreneurs.
What you are actually buying.
Not a logo on a banner. Three things worth more than that.
The room. Government, diplomats, corporate leaders, traditional institutions, university students, media and creators, in one place, over eight days, for reasons they chose. You cannot buy that audience individually at any sensible price.
The reach. National television and radio, digital campaigns, live streaming, lifestyle and culture press, and a creator base that publishes all week without being asked. Our 2026 targets are five thousand people on the ground, ten million digital impressions, half a million live stream views and fifty media placements.
The story. Culture spend reads as commitment rather than advertising, and it ages well. Twenty years from now, being on the twentieth anniversary of Culturati will still mean something. Very little else you buy this year will.
Packages run from title sponsorship down to single segment naming rights, including the Cultural Drape. We build custom packages too, particularly for brands with a real product story in food, fabric, drinks, telecoms or finance.
Name beside the festival name, across every channel, at every event.
Front of house presence, key address, full centre branding.
Stage, red carpet and marketplace presence with award moments.
Media board, exhibition space and full week hospitality.
If you are not a brand and not an investor, you are still invited.
Come in your fabric and bring your people. Enter your family in the Cultural Drape. Put your university forward. Send us the artisan whose work deserves a bigger room than it currently has. Volunteer for festival week. Buy something from a maker and tell somebody where you got it.
Twenty years of this was built by people who kept showing up. That is the only entry requirement.
