Ibadan is set to host the Ibadan Creators Summit 2026, a major gathering designed to spotlight the city’s creative community and equip creators with practical knowledge to build sustainable careers from their skills.

Scheduled for September 5, 2026, the summit will take place at 3–5 Harvesters Drive, Ring Road, Ibadan, from 9:00 a.m. With the theme “Build. Monetize. Scale.”, the event is positioned by its organisers as the biggest creator gathering in Ibadan.

Convened by Amb. Dr Adesola Adeyemi, the summit was created to help creators understand where they are in their journey and what they need to do next to turn their skills into sustainable careers and businesses.

According to Adeyemi, the three words behind the summit’s theme are deliberately practical.

“Build. Monetize. Scale. Not motivation. Not vibes. Those three words are a career path, and I want every person who walks in to know exactly where they are standing on it,” he said.

Creators who are still developing their craft will learn how to build properly. Those who have created something but are struggling to earn from it will gain practical insight into monetisation, while creators who are already earning will learn how to grow beyond their current level.

The summit will feature speakers including Salem King, Stella Matthew, Balogun Danjuma, Tessy Olotta, Kemi Deborah, Folashade Ogunyemi, Hon. Seyi Adisa, Samuel Okike, Folake Mighty, Adebayo Ibrahim, Alamu Akinkunmi, Ajoke Lasisi, Victoria Ajiboye, Ayo Adams, Babatunmise Agboola, Olivia Umeh, The Coach and Hon. Akinshete.

Beyond the sessions, the summit also seeks to give greater visibility to Ibadan’s creator economy by bringing attention to the people already building and earning through creative work in the city.

Adeyemi said the idea became even more important when he discovered how little city-level data exists about the creator economy in Ibadan.

“When I went looking for data on the Ibadan creator economy, there was none. Nothing at city level. Nigeria has numbers. Lagos has numbers. Ibadan does not exist on paper,” he said.

For Adeyemi, that absence has wider implications because communities that are not properly documented can easily be overlooked by brands, government and institutions when opportunities, budgets and programmes are being considered. Part of the work of the summit is therefore to begin putting Ibadan’s creator community on the record.

The summit has also been made free to attend, a decision Adeyemi said was intentional.

“The creator who needs this the most is usually the one who cannot afford a ticket. Charging at the door would have filtered out exactly the people I built this for,” he explained.

At the heart of the initiative is a broader ambition to make Ibadan a city where creators can see clear examples of people building successful careers without feeling that they must relocate before they can grow.

“Ibadan should be a place a creator moves to, not a place a creator leaves. I want a young person here to see somebody who looks like them, talks like them, still lives here, and is earning properly from what they make. Then the question stops being ‘how do I get to Lagos’ and becomes ‘how do I get to that level,’” Adeyemi said.

To help amplify the event and extend its reach to a wider audience, Pressdia is also serving as a media partner for the Ibadan Creators Summit 2026, supporting greater awareness and visibility around the summit and its wider vision for Ibadan’s creator community.

With its first edition on September 5, the Ibadan Creators Summit represents an important step towards making the city’s creators more visible, better equipped and better positioned to participate meaningfully in Nigeria’s growing creator economy.

For updates and more information about the summit, follow @IbadanCreatorsSummit across social media platforms.