December in Lagos, Nigeria is always packed. Everywhere you look, there are great events happening. In a sense, Detty December has become a time to celebrate the amazing growth of our music industry.

I’m not sure where the coinage Detty December came from, but it has come to define a period of fun, events, and great music. Day or night, as Christmas draws closer, you can be sure to find an event that will suit your tastes and your budget.

Major Players

Year on year, some savvy social media curators, share lists of the biggest and best events happening. I would recommend you check out the folks below for the best events.

  1. Flytime: They’ve gone from Rhythm Unplugged to holding a music festival that brings together some of the biggest acts in Nigeria over a couple of days. Every now and then, they also bring in a top international act.
  2. Toro Entertainment Company: The company run by the highly influential Adetoro Fowoshere has hosted some of the biggest events in Nigeria: OLIC, 30BG Concert and she even brought Future to Nigeria.
  3. Livespot: Livespot is owned by Dare and Deola Art-Alade. Dare is an amazing creative, and you can see that in everything that he does with Livespot. From Love Like A Movie to Livespot X, Darey’s concerts are known for being creative, well planned and ON TIME. I particularly like his discipline with timing on his events. Livespot has brought Kim Kardashian, Kelly Rowland and Cardi B to Lagos for previous events.
  4. Beat FM: The station has found its niche with a couple of well attended Christmas Concerts. They’re known for bringing in a lot of amazing young and buzzing UK and US acts that appeal to an energetic Gen Z crowd. The station has brought huge acts like Stormzy, Lil Baby, Krept and Konan and Migos just to mention a few. They are also very influential in the Nigerian music scene and could have anyone from Burna Boy to Tems at their Concert.
  5. Play Network Africa: Worthy of note is Charles Okpaleke of Play Network. He practically runs the Abuja nightlife scene and always come through with the big events during Detty December.
Migos performing at the Beat FM Christmas Concert

Feel free to check them out if you want to be first to know about Detty December events. We also live in a time of COVID-19 which has severely affected how some of our events are organized and the crowds that are allowed at events. Hopefully as the world heals, we will go back to celebrating freely.

I really want to talk about the best practices for organizing these events from a digital perspective. We typically don’t take digital seriously, but if COVID-19 has taught us anything, it’s that technology will open doors for us.

My Checklist

Below is my checklist for promoting your event during Detty December.

  1. Landing page: A landing page is a web page where all the information you want to deliver to the public about your event can be found. It can be a new website, a web page on an existing one or a social media page.  This page should always be up to date; especially if information about the event changes.
  2. Press releases: The first place people seek information about your event is from the comfort of their mobile phones or computers. Having a comprehensive press release that outlines the title of your event, the acts performing, and other key information will help you greatly. For improved success, you should be targeting a minimum of six high-profile newspapers or blogs. If the publication allows it, a link to your landing page should also be in the article.
  3. Digital Marketing: Create a high-quality banner or video promoting your event and promote it on social media and on the Google Display Network. You may need to create it in different sizes and formats to fit the different platforms. Promotion allows you to reach new audiences. Your ads should lead people to your landing page and your landing page should have tracking enabled. You need to know where your audience is coming from and if they’re converting. Conversions in this case would be people buying tickets.

Hot Tips

Here are a few digital tips that would improve your Detty December event planning.

  1. Use an online ticket vendor or two and make sure that it’s easy to buy tickets online. I will recommend Nairabox to most people. They have plenty of experience with some of the biggest events and they also help with offline marketing as well.
  2. You should make your event available via a live stream. Whether it is paid, or free, live streaming gives you an opportunity to expand your audience. Be sure to use a high-quality internet connection for this. You should also have the content available on demand for the audience to watch later.
  3. You should get the media heavily present at your event, so they capture the experience and put in their own words. You should also put out another set of press releases. This particularly helps if people are trying to find information about your previous events. If you created website for the event, you could curate past events and share the information on there.
  4. Find influential blogs on social media that can plug your events into their communities. Some will do it for free and some may charge a fee or request event passes in exchange.

If you’re planning a Detty December event, please take advantage of the amazing opportunities that digital offers. This can also be modified as a guide for events in general.

All the best with your planning. If you need help, drop me a line using my contact form here.

The force be with you!