Ibadan Book & Arts Festival
IBAFEST 2025
The Inaugural Edition
Ibadan, Nigeria | 2025
The Inaugural Edition
The Ibadan Book and Arts Festival made its debut in 2025, establishing a new annual platform for conversations around books, literature, arts, culture, and ideas in Ibadan.
The inaugural edition brought together writers, artists, scholars, cultural practitioners, students, publishers, educators, and members of the public for a series of conversations, performances, and creative encounters.
The festival was conceived as a space where people could encounter books and the arts while engaging with the questions, experiences, and ideas that inform creative and cultural life.
From its first edition, IBAFEST was designed to connect Ibadan’s rich literary and cultural history with contemporary creative practice and wider audiences.
The Festival’s Home
A Festival Rooted in Ibadan
Ibadan has long occupied an important place in Nigeria’s literary, intellectual, educational, and cultural history.
IBAFEST was established with an understanding of this history and a commitment to creating a contemporary platform through which writers, artists, readers, scholars, students, and cultural practitioners can meet.
The inaugural festival provided an opportunity to celebrate this heritage while creating room for new conversations and new voices.
The 2025 Prelude
Before the main festival, IBAFEST 2025 presented four prelude events at different locations across Ibadan.
The prelude programme created opportunities for audiences to begin engaging with the festival’s broader concerns before the main gathering.
The events featured conversations with Professor Niyi Osundare, Dr Tunde Adegbola, Oko Owi Ocho, and Sodiq Alabi.
Together, the four events attracted over 200 participants.
200+
Participants attended the 2025 prelude events across Ibadan.
The Main Festival
The inaugural edition culminated in the main festival programme, bringing together audiences around literature, the arts, cultural expression, and public conversation.
The festival provided spaces for authors, artists, scholars, students, readers, and cultural practitioners to meet and exchange ideas.
The programme also created opportunities for young people and students to participate in conversations around books, creativity, and the arts.
More than 200 secondary school students attended the physical festival, with representatives from more than 20 secondary schools.
Literature, Arts and Public Conversation
IBAFEST 2025 established the festival as a meeting point for literature, the arts, and wider cultural conversation.
Through its sessions and panels, the festival created opportunities to discuss books, creative practice, culture, education, society, and the experiences that influence how people tell and understand stories.
The inaugural edition also demonstrated the value of creating spaces where established practitioners and younger audiences can participate in the same cultural conversations.
IBAFEST 2025 in Numbers
974
Online registrations
1,770
Total reach across sessions and panels
200+
Secondary school students
20+
Secondary schools represented
4
Prelude events across Ibadan
What the First Edition Established
IBAFEST 2025 established the foundation for an annual literary and cultural festival based in Ibadan.
The inaugural edition demonstrated an appetite for conversations around books, literature, arts, culture, and ideas, while creating connections among audiences and practitioners across different parts of the city’s creative and intellectual community.
The participation recorded across the prelude events, online registrations, physical festival, and secondary school programme provided a strong foundation for the festival’s continued development.
It also established IBAFEST as a platform capable of connecting local cultural activity with wider national and international audiences.
Looking Ahead
From the First Edition to the Future
The inaugural edition provided the foundation for the festival’s continued growth.
IBAFEST 2026 builds on that foundation with a three day programme combining virtual workshops, masterclasses, online book conversations, and a full day of physical programming in Ibadan.
The festival continues to create opportunities for writers, artists, readers, students, scholars, educators, publishers, and cultural practitioners to meet around books, arts, ideas, and the stories that matter to them.
IBAFEST 2025
The inaugural edition established a foundation for an annual festival rooted in Ibadan and connected to wider literary and cultural communities.
The beginning of an annual cultural gathering.
IBAFEST 2025
Ibadan, Nigeria