Here’s how they’re dragging the creative ecosystem down — and what needs to change.
1. Lounges: One-Night Profit versus Creative Growth
Owners of lounges and nightlife spots often treat each event as a chance to recoup their entire investment that same night. Promoters and local artists are brought in — but only as “guests” whose contribution is undervalued. The result: short-sighted business practices undermine talent cultivation, experimentation and long-term growth.
Promoters report being told: “We’ll give you a cut on the people you bring.” Then, once the show starts, the lounge owner says: “These are our regular customers… where are your people?” That means the promoter’s marketing and audience development efforts are ignored or undercounted. Meanwhile the venue owner ends up owning the benefit: more foot-traffic, more new patrons, more visibility — all thanks to the promoter’s work.
When the marketing, awareness building and branding done by promoters lift the venue’s profile, the promoters and artists don’t share the long-tail benefits. These practices strip away incentive from local promoters to invest time, money and creativity into events, ultimately stifling local content growth.
2. Media Houses: The Silent Partner in Neglect
On the media side, local radio stations, TV channels and event-blogs often favour Lagos-based acts or nationally trending names — while home-grown artistes in Ibadan and Oyo State are barely covered. A recent academic study of Nigeria’s media-entertainment interplay showed that media outlets are key gatekeepers for visibility, status-conferral and content distribution.
Additionally, while the national entertainment sector is booming, media infrastructure, regulatory support and local coverage are weak. Nigeria’s media & entertainment sector faces steep challenges: rising costs, currency devaluation, and value-added tax pressures. In that context, regional talent is sidelined and major media houses often ignore smaller local acts, thereby reducing their exposure and opportunities.
3. The Combined Effect: Talent Drained Locally
When you put together the two forces — lounge owners capturing promoter/artist value, and media houses ignoring the regional scene — you get a local ecosystem running on fumes. Talent looks elsewhere, events don’t scale, and the creative chain (artist → promoter → venue → media) breaks down.
In Oyo State, which has one of the highest densities of radio stations for a single city (Ibadan), this is particularly painful. Despite the potential for local coverage, the local entertainment scene remains under-reported and under-supported. The result: fewer events, less investment in local acts, weaker audience growth.
4. Why This Matters Beyond One Night
The creative industry doesn’t just entertain — in Nigeria it already contributes significantly to GDP and employment: some reports indicate the creative economy lifted millions of youth into jobs.
Every time a local lounge treats a promoter unfairly, or a media house ignores a regional act, a link in the talent value-chain is weakened.
When local events and artists fail to scale, the region loses cultural value, potential for tourism, branding and even exportable content.
The industry’s structural issues (poor infrastructure, weak revenue-sharing models, lack of media support) are accentuated at the local level.
5. What Should Change
To revive the ecosystem in Oyo State (and similarly elsewhere), here are some actionable steps:
For Lounge Owners:
Treat promoters and artists as long-term partners, not short-term revenue sources.
Create transparent agreements: define how audience counts will be measured, how benefits will be shared, how marketing efforts will be credited.
Recognise the value of marketing the event and the lounge together: the promoter builds the concept, the audience; the venue provides the space. Both deserve value.
Think beyond a single night: invest in recurring events, local-artist nights, collaborations, so that the venue becomes a hub of creative growth, not only profit extraction.
For Media Houses (local radio, TV, blogs):
Commit to covering regional scenes: Ibadan, Oyo, smaller towns — not just the Lagos big names.
Develop platforms/features that spotlight local artists/promoters: interviews, event coverage, “rising star of the week,” local event calendars.
Build relationships with local promoters so media coverage supports awareness, and helps build a regional entertainment economy.
Advocate for regulatory/infrastructure support: e.g., better event-reporting, local content quotas, media investment in regional creativity.
For Artists & Promoters:
Insist on fair contracts and transparency with venues.
Build your own marketing assets (social media, influencers, local media) and track your audience so that you can prove value to venues.
Collaborate: promoters pool resources, venues collaborate on series events, media houses partner with regional talent.
Leverage digital: while live events matter, nurture online presence so you’re not completely dependent on one-night events or local venues.
✅ Conclusion
Ibadan and the wider Oyo State region possess the talent, the youthful energy, the population and the cultural backdrop to be a serious entertainment hub. But when lounge owners prioritise quick profits over creative development, and media houses prioritise big cities over regional scenes, local artists and content suffer.
If lounge owners start acting as enablers rather than extractors, and media houses begin to amplify the regional voice instead of neglecting it, the local entertainment industry can thrive.
It’s time for the local ecosystem to work with its talent, not against it. And for the media to stop being silent.
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