The Osun Osogbo socio-cultural festival has been described as a prime event in Osun State that will open other parts of the state tourism potentials going by the close support invested at the just concluded event.The Special Adviser to the Governor on Culture and Tourism, Mr Oladipo Soyode who spoke with TTM in Osogbo recently, said that the present administration is poise to take tourism to an enviable level and upgrade the socio-economic standard of the people through different human-driven activities.According to Soyode, 'what we achieved during the just concluded Osun Osogbo festival, surpasses what was been recorded at previous event and this was because we went extra miles to synergising with the custodians of the festival, joining force with relevant security operatives in Osun and also harnessing other logistical avenue to make it grand.'The achievement this year was in many folds. Firstly, regarding the build up to the festival, we made a good preparation to see that the show was not static, which will only have people come for the ritual and later leave, but rather we set in motion a town storming session to light up Osogbo before and after the festival.'The town storming session involved creating awareness, where you have people dancing round the town with a carnival-like float to sensitise the people ahead of the grand finale. More so for an ancient festival that had been celebrated for centuries, ours is to give it a new look and approach.'The Special Adviser added that aside the awareness, there was different innovation in terms of entertainment and shows that featured artistes like Beautiful Nubia, Chris Ajilo, Jimmy Solanke, Orlando Julius and other young upcoming artistes in Osun State.'We had all these going on before the grand finale and exhibition of arts, which was paramount and significant to the culture of the people as well as pageant of different styles of hair-do.'However, we tried to create diverse entertainment activities for the grand finale and days after the festival, a concert was scheduled for 9ice, Olumide and Ara the drum enigma, who treated visitors and tourists to a spectacular moment at different pre-arranged location in Osogbo town. Also there was also a female Bata dance group and devotees from Cuba who added glamour and these are efforts built up for the just concluded festival to project beyond the grand finale.'On security, Soyode said, 'we were concerned about crowd and traffic control; hence, we put up security mechanism in place to make the free flow of traffic possible. In the past, we had too many complaints of traffic because cars were allowed to drive all the way to the grove, which eventually made traffic control difficult nevertheless, this year, there was restriction in that direction while an alternative parking lots to manage the situation notwithstanding, there is room for improvement.'Yes! as we all know, this is not the best of times for security in Nigeria, it was not that we had any security threat or expecting anything, but going by the saying 'a stitch in time saves nine,' we made necessary arrangement for the smooth flow of traffic during the festival.'In addition, we are working on the new pavilion, the old one has been brought down because it was too small to accommodate guests at the grove and I assure you that within the next couple of months it will be ready.'From inception, all what we are doing are in collaboration with the Osun Osogbo Heritage Council and the devotees. From the architectural design to the location of the pavilion, everything embarked upon in the design were in compliance and approval of the devotees, who are custodian of all the sacred places at the grove.'We are not tampering with the area, but compliment to make it trendier and bigger to accommodate more guests. We are building the new pavilion on two plots of land and it going to be a gallery style of sort. Right now, the pavilion is a work in progress and one cannot really see the beauty of the structure until it is completed, it will be clear to you by next year's event.'Speaking on data to plan for subsequent edition, Ladipo revealed that the state is working alongside the hotels to make it a worthy exercise. We have provided forms for visitors in hotels for analysis; to collate information of visitors (domestic and international), their country of residence, arrival and departure, to know the traffic of tourists and visitors that came for the festival. Therefore, we are building this up, we surely need a database to plan, and we are working towards this.On marketing, the special adviser explained; 'Well, a lot is being done about this. One thing we should always realise is that anything that is worth doing is worth doing well so the festival needs proper planning and as such, we have a consultant and also the tourism master plan for the State of Osun is now ready, which will be presented to the governor very soon.'Another thing was that after a thorough research on designing the master plan for one year, the execution of the plan becomes an easy task to handle because the bulk of the work is in putting it together. Now, what we are waiting for, is the presentation and approval for work to begin, Soyode added.
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