Lagos State government, in collaboration with beer brewers, will host the maiden edition of Nigeria Beer Festival from September 25 to October 1.
The festival is aimed at creating excitement during the week-long event. It will climax with the Independence Day Mega Concert to commemorate Nigeria’s independence.
The festival, which will promote responsible drinking among drinking-age (18 and above) consumers at all its touch points, will be held at the Lagos Atlantic City to give it a carnival atmosphere. It will be a gathering of the largest community of beer consumers from across the country and beyond.
The organisers of the festival, On and One Event (001) Limited, said the state government, which is passionate about tourism, would provide massive institutional support, particularly security, transport and related logistics.
The event, according to the organisers, would see Nigeria enrol into the league of Beer Festivals around the world and boost the country’s tourism opportunities.
001 General Manager Akinola Oluwaleimu said the world-acclaimed Oktoberfest (Beer Festival) in Munich attracts more than 50,000 tourists to Germany yearly, adding that other countries in Europe and the Americas have caught the bug.
“Nigeria Beer Festival will be a carnival week of entertainment, sales and marketing and a gathering of the largest community of beer consumers from across the country and beyond, with economic value for the brands and the economy at large,” Oluwaleimu said.
The Nigeria Beer Festival will provide a fitting ambience to showcase fashion and lifestyle, as well as culture in a carnival atmosphere with various beer brands and other alcoholic drinks in Nigeria connecting with their existing and potential consumers.
According to social scientists beer is among the symbolic vehicles for identifying, describing, constructing and manipulating cultural values and interpersonal relationships. They classify different alcoholic beverages in terms of their social and cultural meanings.
Historians said beer has been popular – since times of ancient Babylon and Greece, Mesopotamia and Egypt and is one of the oldest beverages humans have produced, dating back to at least the fifth millennium BC.
Anthropologists and archaeologists also believe that it was a taste for beer, not bread that started the cultivation of barley in around 9000BC, known as the agricultural revolution. Beer didn’t just change the world; historians insist it saved it!
Meanwhile partners of the forthcoming Nigeria Beer Festival are also assured of world-standard facilities as the organisers of the Nigeria Beer Festival have partnered with reputable and qualified architects from Europe to design modular stands to fit into any shape or style desired by exhibitors. nmi Ambode is expected to close the festival during the Independence Day Mega Concert that will parade an array of A-list Nigerian artistes, which will feature eye-popping fireworks display.