Lagos is in for a good time in December. Reason: Balmoral Group is organising the International Drinks Festival. It will hold for three days between December 1 and 3 at the Federal Palace Hotel, Victoria Island, Lagos.
The group’s Chief Operating Officer (COO), Akin Eso, and its Chief Executive Officer, Ezekiel Adamu, have promised an event of international standard.
Eso said: “The Nigerian drinks market is over a six billion Naira market, with, for now, not as many players as it should be, compared to other countries in the world. We, however, have that consuming population which can be estimated to be over 170 million.
“So, with events such as this, consumers are more exposed to newer brands and they begin to have options. As such, the value of the Nigerian drink industry is pretty huge, and it is an industry with huge employer of labour, so an event such as this will open up for more employment, more brands to come in, and the existing brands will see reasons to expand. So, it automatically boosts the economy.”
Five thousand professionals and 10,000 consumers are expected at the festival. Eso explained that “this is an all-drink festival, not an alcoholic festival; it’s where you have champagne, juice, tea, water, everything in all categories”. He said the event is open to everyone who registers to attend.
On what the exhibitors stand to gain, he said: “The exhibitors have a lot to gain aside from getting direct contact with their consumers. They will also show their market share in the festival, showcase their new products and lots more. It’s going to be one of such festivals where you’ll be seeing a lot of drink companies launch new brands. So, the exhibitors will have direct feedback right in the hall there. They will also do a lot of sales, meet high network consumers; consumers that will be able to give them the desired results in terms of numbers.
“The exhibitors will meet with the consumers directly, they get feedback; they will also activate an event that has over 15,000 people, which is all about the numbers. Asides that, there is a lot of sales going on, so they will take orders from the consumers and there’s a strategy of bringing in high net worth consumers that will be able to do a lot of purchasing. So, we’re looking at having millions in transactions going on during the festival,” he said.
There will be 50 speakers for the summit. “We have different time slots and different topics to be spoken on during the summit. So, we have various experts from various areas in the drinks industry.
“For example, if we’re discussing newer brands coming into the country, we need to talk about the National Agency for Food Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) registration and certification, so NAFDAC officials are going to be there and Customs officials are going to be there to talk about these things.
“People that have questions such as: ‘how do I get NAFDAC certification for my brand without going through the hassles’ will be answered? Sometimes, brands that are coming into the country face problems of containers that may be held for about five months. These are the areas we’re bringing in experts to explain.
“Another question is “we don’t have many breweries in the country, how do we get more breweries to create more jobs?” Because the alcoholic brands are more employers of labour in Nigeria, we do not have as many breweries as we should have. So, these issues have to be discussed. And while we have the lead speaker for each of these topics, we have the panellists as well, to shed more light on these issues. The media as well will be there to project the event,” Eso said.
On why the consumer should attend the event when he could get the drink in his house, Eso said: “Fairs such as this are educative, interactive, enlightening and quite engaging too. So, it can be a fun day out for the family as we have activities for the kids and adults. It would also help in the area of health, as we have a lot of adulterated drinks in Nigeria. One may ask, how can we differentiate the fake from the original? All these questions will be answered there. It’s actually a good day out.”
Eso said crowd management would not be toyed with. He unveiled the strategy for this: “We’re dealing with security agencies, and this is not our first time doing a major event. We’ve had between 20,000 and 30,000 people at an event, so we have some experience regarding that. So, we’re teaming up with experienced security agencies and Lagos State as well to see how we can control the traffic on that day.
“We also have Satellite Car Parks where people will be able to park their cars and take shuttle buses around. We’re also partnering with companies such as Taxify and Uber, because there will be alcohol at the event that day so we’ll try to advise people not to drive at all because of the risks involved.
“We’re also partnering with Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), because we don’t want intoxicated people to drive back home that day, thereby constituting a nuisance to the general public. We’re also looking at getting the FRSC to test some of their technologies in detecting people who are intoxicated; it’s a good place to do that,” he said.
Eso explained that most of the major brands at the fair would be running sales and discounts, adding that the group deliberately picked the first weekend in December, because “December is the month when we have a lot of events in Nigeria”.
Adamu said participants would be guaranteed of getting deals they cannot get anywhere else “because these brands are coming into the festival to make an impact”.
He added: “It’s a three-day event and there are different sessions: The exhibition, Drink Summit, Master Classes for consumers and professionals, the Summit for issues affecting the drinks industry and so on. The Summit is more professional, while the Master Classes are basically for the consumers as it will help them to know more about what they consume and their healthy drinks.
“Education, flair bar tenders are coming in (where people can learn to make cocktails and so on), tasting of the drinks and wines, the major sales will be going on. Asides from the event, there’s also the Beer Village where there will be lots of drinks, barbecue; basically everything to munch on, a live band, entertainment for the guests which includes an international act which we wouldn’t be disclosing yet. There will be several disc jockeys (DJs) and acts just to ensure that once you come the first day, you’d definitely want to come on the second and third days. It’s never happened before on this scale, and you’re guaranteed to be astonished.”
On arrangements for exhibitors, Eso said: “There are booths of three square metres to about 16, and 32 square metres. So, there’s a booth for every budget. So for organising a festival such as this, there’s the marketing budget, the organisation and all, but there’s no other company qualified as the Balmoral Group to put up an event such as this. When it comes to affordability, I would say the booths are much affordable.”
Adamu added:” We have booths that cost from N100, 000 to about N10m. So, it depends on what the exhibitor is trying to achieve, and the exposure he or she is trying to get for the brand. The higher the cost, the greater the exposure for the brand becomes.
“We have different sponsorship packages. We would, however, not be doing a title sponsorship with any drink brand. The sponsorship packages are within the festival, but the event is not open for any full sponsorship with drinks brand as we are trying to make it an open playing field for all the drink brands because. It will be unfair to have a drink brand as a title sponsor, when you have other brands that are coming for the event.”
