The first ever Nigerian Entertainment Conference which held on April 26th 2013, at the Grand Ball Room of Eko Hotel and Suites Victoria island, Lagos has been hailed as a much needed change agent to guide and effectively position the Nigerian entertainment industry.
The National conference, the
first of its kind in Nigeria, was formally declared opened by the former
Minister of Information and Culture and the current Director General of the
Nigerian Economic Summit Group, Mr Frank Nweke Jnr, and was attended by
thousands of entertainment enthusiasts from different spheres who came in from
all over the country.
The conference comprising five
highly interactive sessions namely: Music,
Nollywood, Media, Business and CSR and led by key speakers-world
wide respected practitioners in their sectors, Kenny Ogungbe, Founder/C.E.O
Kennis Music, Amaka Igwe, Producer/Director, Amaka Igwe Studios, Kola Oyeyemi,
GM Consumer Marketing MTN and Chris Ubosi, CEO of Megaletrics- led panelists
and the audience in a lively debate with recurrent issues identified as lack of
systems, funding, education, infrastructure, investments, policy enforcement,
flight of talents, compensation, exploitation and practitioners' welfare, each
speaker expressed desire for change, using statistics to highlight what was,
what is, what should be, and what could be; while making relevant comparison
with similar industries in Europe and America.
The conference, as the
organizers had earlier reiterated, was conceived to seek ways to address and stem
the degenerative challenges of the entertainment industry and fashion a
blueprint that would serve as a guide to positively enhance and sustain it’s
growth both locally and internationally.
“The experts amongst us, the
professionals who know the ABC’s will show us blue prints and models we can
learn and borrow from. Our choice of
theme, building the industry of our
dreams, is to encourage everyone-from
intern to veteran-, to appreciate the great work that still needs to be done,
so that we can all go back to our segments of the industry and begin building
our future.”
“I’m delighted at the turn out
today, encouraged by the passion and zeal in our speakers, panelists and
audience and also inspired by the collective desire I see here today: the
desire to truly create the entertainment industry we all yearn for,” stated Adekunle
Ayeni Samuel, Publisher and Editor in Chief, Nigerian Entertainment Today.
Director General of the Nigerian
Economic Summit Group, Frank Nweke Jnr commended the organizers and
participants for their attendance. “This is an important conference and it is
my expectation that there will be very constructive discussions around the
issues which have impeded the development of the entertainment industry. It is
my suggestion that we focus on implementable solutions to the problems and agree
on the various stakeholder levels that will be needed to remove bottlenecks and
other impediments to growth,” he concluded.
The conference concluded with
key speakers, panelists and guests in unanimous agreement on the need for
urgent change in the way the entertainment industry in Nigeria is being run and
reiterating a call for action on the way forward.
Some of the invited guests at
the national conference included
D’banj, Don
Jazzy , Ken Calebs Olumense, Tony One Week,
Gbemi Olateru Olagbegi, Others included Mahmoud Ali- Balogun, Ifeoma
Willioma Yvonne Vixen Ekwerre, Tolu Oniru, Tunde Demuren, Zeb Ejiro,Ebuka Obi
Uchendu, Cally Ikpe Tony Okoroji, Capital Femi, Jaywon, amongst many others.
Conference
partners were Forty Two Media, Naija FM, EDS,
TymeOut
With TEE A, MOMO, F316, JPKingdom, Top Radio, Star Music, Sodium Brand
Solutions, Caara Solutions, Classic fm 97.3 DIGIPRINTS, Avedge Media, The Green
Room, Kiss Events, Hip On, PropertyMart, The Beat 99.9 fm and BlackHouse Media.
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