The organisers of the Órüpézá Festival have announced that the 2025 edition of its Freedom Party Week will take place at Freedom Park, Lagos, between September 28 and October 1.

The festival, introduced as an annual platform for cultural expression, is returning in partnership with Freedom Park, a site that once served as a colonial prison but has since been repurposed into a space for arts, memory, and civic gathering.

Announcing the event, Theo Lawson, Chief Executive Officer of Freedom Park Lagos, said the partnership aligns with the park’s

historical transformation. “Órüpézá Festival embodies the very spirit of Freedom Park—transforming history into a gathering point for resilience, freedom, and identity,” Lawson stated.

The Festival Director, Edi Lawani, described the 2025 edition as an extension of the festival’s cultural vision. “Órüpézá is not just a festival; it is a reclamation of narratives, an assertion that African culture is dynamic, youthful, and globally resonant. Freedom Party Week 2025 deepens that vision—inviting communities to celebrate, question, and reimagine culture together,” he said.

According to the organisers, the programme will feature cultural parades, fashion showcases, live concerts, film screenings, discussion panels, and a curated marketplace of artisans and food vendors. Attendance is projected to exceed 20,000, building on the 15,000 participants recorded at the 2024 edition, which was themed “Celebrating Freedom, Art, and Unity!”

The choice of Freedom Park as anchor venue has been highlighted by organisers as central to the festival’s identity, situating cultural performance within a space historically associated with imprisonment but now repurposed as a centre of memory and creativity.