The Lagos Fringe team on Saturday disclosed that the third edition of the festival will hold from Nov. 17 to 22, to develop artistic talents among Nigerians, cutting across different genres of arts.
The Festival Producer, Brenda Uphopho, disclosed this during a media briefing at Freedom Park, Lagos Island.
Uphopho said that the whole essence of the festival is to learn, network and exhibit in such a way that artistes recover speedily from losses suffered due to COVID-19 pandemic.
She noted that during the festival, artistes will be given free access to exhibit their works for sale as online workshop sessions will be held to instill some knowledge in artistes.
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According to her, visual artists, musicians, comedians, performing artists and more will be involved in the festival, especially the talented ones whose voices have not been heard.
“The entire festival promises to be enlightening, we are getting some international and local facilitators who will be educating artistes on how best to market their works through the digital space.
“Lots of activities are lined up for the festival which includes Nollywood yesterday, this will have some veteran Nollywood actors like Richard Mofe-Damijo, Ego Boyo and many others take people down memory lane through historical journey of films.
“This is to preserve history which remains a huge gap in the industry; we will be having film screening, musical concerts, comedy nights, lots of educating sessions and fun moments.
“We have also introduced food festival to focus on street food.“The 6-day festival will hold at Freedom Park and we will be having only 50 per cent capacity to allow for social distancing and adhere to COVID-19 safety protocols,” she said.
Uphopho noted that the festival, in its 3rd year, has been successful so far with the support of the United States Consulate General, Lagos, Goethe Institute, Freedom Park and Orijin.
She said that they had also partnered with Irie Vibes, a health company, which will be conducting free cervical cancer screening for women.
According to her, 60 women benefited from the kind gesture in the 2019 edition of the festival and they are targeting over 100 women this year.
Uphopho, lamenting the lack of sponsors for the festival, called on corporate organisations and private investors to indicate interest in sponsoring the project as this takes lots of Nigerian youths off the streets.She said funding has been the greatest challenge since the beginning of the festival three years ago.
“The feedback from the previous editions of the festival has been great, most artistes have developed International connections and collaborations but unfortunately, this year, we will be having less physical International participation due to the ravaging COVID-19 pandemic,” she said.
