The Victor Uwaifo Creative Hub in Benin City, Edo State, is seeing an uptick in engagements and marked-up prospects for growing the creative arts, hospitality and technology industries in the state, which is the task it sets out to accomplish.
This follows on strategic engagements with its publics.
The Victor Uwaifo Creative Hub recently held a strategic media parley at its well-appointed offices on Airport Road, Benin City.
The event saw a flurry of enquiries about the hub’s services and facilities, followed by preliminary engagements towards patronage and promises to spread the word about services on offer.
There was a broad spectrum of budding creative industry operators and managers also present. They expressed surprise and enthusiasm at the quality of facilities and support personnel at the hub.
Many creative sector operators, agents and consultants at the event made enquiries about the terms and conditions for using the facility for the execution of their artistic projects, including movies, documentaries, comedy skits, music and tech training, and promised to sign up and tow their wards along.
In her opening remark, the Managing Director of Edojobs, Mrs. Voilet Obiokoro, appreciated the participants and thanked them for coming.
“We welcome you to Edo State Skill Development Agency, popularly called Edo Jobs. We thought to have this parley and have you all come on board to give you an insight, share what we are doing, very laudable things if I could say so myself,” Obiokoro said.
“We are doing these things on behalf of Governor Godwin Obaseki who is our visioner, the one that drives us to execute his vision, big vision, and the Creative Hub where we are right now is the newest.
“We call it the baby of the agency, and we thought to call you all in to bring you up to speed, and update you on the plans and actions we are executing in this place,” she said.
The Victor Uwaifo Creative Hub & Sound Stage, a brainchild of Edo State Governor, Godwin Obaseki, provides state-of-the-art soundstage and other facilities to develop world-class content as part of a vision for Edo State to regain its position as the centre of arts and culture in Africa.
The hub also has the most modern equipment for film and TV production and a mini-studio for photography and content creation among others. It likewise has skilled engineers, producers, directors and other industry specialists, who support clients’ projects and mentor budding artistes.
Furthermore, it has a posh 160-seater cinema as well as conference and event facility with 3,000-person capacity.
The hub is an arm of the EdoJobs, a skills creation and enhancement organ of the Edo State Government, and is open to render service to the tech and artistic industry in the state.
The media parley featured quality content in terms of visioning, ambience and diversity of audience and no-holds-barred, value-driven exchanges of ideas.
Presentations by various team leaders at the hub were made in a give-and-take mode, marked by questions, answers and suggestions flowing both ways.
The hub’s team leaders listed the training and support programmes that the facility has on offer and called for observations and cooperation for an enhanced interface with stakeholders.
The guests, numbering about 120, were then broken into four groups, chaperoned and taken on tours of the facility by team leaders of the Victor Uwaifo Creative Hub, who made presentations, took questions and then gave answers and overviews.
A lot of those in attendance expressed surprise at the range and quality of facilities available at the hub and were impressed that the facilities could be easily and affordably accessed and were matched with expert project support and mentoring in-house.
Skits, short films and documentaries were shown on a life-size screen, again followed by questions and answers.
On display were top-of-the-range hi-tech equipment and facilities, including adjustable versatile movie sets, enhanced and sound-proofed music studios, from which music and movies could be recorded from start to end.
Invitees came from industries including media, music, movies, hotels, tour facilitators, cinema houses, academia, as well as the established, budding and aspiring creative industry.
Guests were served a variety of music, exotic blends of fruit juice and cream cocktails and small chops, and were encouraged to network.
One significant musical tune featured was the song “Joromi” by the late musician and sculptor, Sir Victor Uwaifo, after whom the hub is named.
Aside from the MD of Edo Jobs, Mrs. Obiokoro, who was the host of the media parley, others present included Lady Violet Okosun, the Head of Production of Victor Uwiafo Creative Hub, the MD of Azura, the Edo State Commissioner for Arts and Culture, Head of JOOPSA (John Odigie Oyegun Public Service Academy), representatives of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), who came to show their support for the Agency, among whom were a Team Lead – Aigbeze Uhimwen and his colleague Christy Harrison-Oyegue, a team from The Nigerian Observer, as well as representatives of ITV/Radio, EBS TV/Radio, Kada Cinemas Limited, KU FM, Vibes FM, Super FM, Bronze FM, NTA, Arise TV, Speed FM, Silverbird, and Rhythm FM.
Top comedians and skit makers like Mc Edo Pikin, Mr. Common Sense, Victor Sabino, and Edo Pride were also in attendance.
