Why ALS debuted festival this year – Buchi Onyegbule
Buchi Onyegbule is the lead convener of the ongoing Abuja Literary and Arts Festival organised by Abuja Literary Society (ALS). A presenter at WE FM he is also a writer, blogger and freelance book reviewer. Here, he talks about the festival, what it took to put it together and more. Excerpts: Bookshelf: Today is officially […]
Buchi Onyegbule is the lead convener of the ongoing Abuja Literary and Arts Festival organised by Abuja Literary Society (ALS). A presenter at WE FM he is also a writer, blogger and freelance book reviewer. Here, he talks about the festival, what it took to put it together and more. Excerpts:
Bookshelf: Today is officially the last day of the Abuja Literary and Arts festival organised by Abuja Literary Society (ALS). Why did ALS decide to debut a festival in 2018?
Buchi Onyegbule: The idea came last year. ALS has been growing in leaps and bounds and our activities have been becoming more robust. The founder, Victor Anoliefo was one of those who first broached the idea of a festival. The reason why we decided we wanted to go ahead is because we felt that Abuja as a city needs to be counted where literary activities in Nigeria are concerned, and we needed to be at the forefront. We also felt that, as a young and growing city, Abuja wants its own inhabitants to connect with other people as well and we decided we wanted to have a voice.
Another reason is because ALS is twenty years now and we decided, what better way to celebrate it than to debut a literary and arts festival. And like you said, debut, so it’s going to go on for years.
Bookshelf: What was it like preparing for the festival?
Onyegbule: The story about preparing for this festival is very interesting. Now, ALS runs practically without money. It’s deliberate. People don’t pay registration dues. The halls we use, even though they are high class, we don’t pay for them. We get them on goodwill. We use the Hilton, we use Sandralia Hotel and Salamander Café. These we get on the basis of the relationship we have its owners and managers. So, we have a deliberate model of not owning a purse. When we decided we were going to have a festival that was obviously going to need money to fly writers and artists, we knew it was going to cost money. But we didn’t have a dime. That is probably the first difficulty we had, and we were even a bit naïve and went out with a date without paying for a venue. We learnt a lot of lessons and knocked on many doors. Some got slammed in our faces, some very politely told us, no, some others opened their doors and told us there wasn’t money, while others said they could help and believe in what we can do. It was a very interesting ride trying to raise funds for the festival, and we learnt a lot.
Bookshelf: There are ticket fees for participants. Why is this necessary, being that there’s a need to encourage reading culture?
Onyegbule: There’s a level of seriousness we want. The festival ticket is N2, 500 at the gate. But before then, we had the N1, 500 discount and some students are given tickets at N1000. Also, those below sixteen years of age get in for free. So, the reason we had to put a cap is because we wanted seriousness. We wanted people who wanted to attend to do so. We didn’t want people to wander in, get bored and wander out. We wanted people to actually commit to attending the festival, and it is much more value for money. Lined up for the event were activities such as the screening of ‘93 Days’ by Steve Gukas, poetry slam, music performances, Dike Chukwumerije’s ‘Made in Nigeria and so on. These cost money. At least one of these activities cost N5, 000 for a ticket, but imagine N2, 500 for all the activities. You also factor in all the literary activities, such as the panel discussions.
We have a literary hustle, which is a programme by the British Council. It’s part of what they call a creative hustle programme in which they go to creatives and try to help them find their way around the mine field that is the creative industry. The industry is largely informal, and a lot of people struggle and never make anything out of it. So, the idea of a creative hustle is to help young persons to navigate around it. It’s also part of the activities. But for us, it’s being tailored down into a workshop of literary activities. It’s a platform for creative writing and publishing.
So, we have got publishers and writers who are there to share their experiences, as well as lawyers who are there to tell you how to protect your work and ensure you aren’t taken for a ride by publishers, marketers or agents.
We also have literary and poetry master classes given by Dike Chukwumerije, Bash Amuneni and Ishmael Beah. All of these things are meant to add value.
Bookshelf: There seems to be a lot of interest in organising literary festivals. There’s the ‘Kaduna Book and Arts Festival’ that debuted last year, last week’s festival by Abuja Writers Forum, and the new African Writers Conference slated to hold from November 30 to December 2. What do you think influences this growing interest?
Onyegbunle: I think in Nigeria there is a youth boom. With the growth of pop culture in Nigeria, a lot of creative activities are basically becoming mainstream. Rather than having a group of people in one tiny room discussing, now you have got creatives making up more of the population. It’s not just literary festivals. There are photography, film and art festivals and other different festivals. Creative activities are now being mainstreamed, and the easiest way is to get people to talk about it, share knowledge, buy and get revenue. The easiest thing to do is call it a festival, which is why it seems there are now more festivals. There is going to be one in Port Harcourt this year, and soon we may have an Enugu festival and so on.
It’s all well and good because some of these writers, it’s their main source of income. If what it takes for people to buy more of their books for them to be paid means to travel from one state to another, get experiences and meet people and connect with their readers, then it’s fantastic.