Mary Nnah
Bigger in size, louder on enterprise, and sharper on access, the GTCO Food and Drink Festival is staging a high-stakes return to Lagos as organisers frame the 9th edition around three pressure points: scale, financing, and fairness for small businesses.
Guaranty Trust Bank Holding Company Plc yesterday announced that the festival will run from May 1 to May 3, 2026 at the GTCentre, Oniru, with 204 free retail stalls, merchant loans of up to N30 million for vendors, and a theme that insists on “Everything Food and Drink” as both cultural promise and economic test.
This was revealed during a press briefing held yesterday at the bank’s head office in Victoria Island, Lagos, to announce the forthcoming event.
Group CEO Segun Agbaje called the event “a living expression of what we stand for as an institution: innovation, opportunity, and enterprise that is accessible to all,” but it was Chief Communication Officer Oyinade Adegite who put financing at the center of the agenda, telling journalists that the bank’s support does not end when the festival closes.
“So, if you have our POSs, you can get up to 30 million Naira… The loans are there for you to take… and it’s not just for food. We initially started with a food and fashion business, and it was subsidised, but it’s for all small businesses”, Adegite said, referencing an earlier “food and fashion loan… priced at 90 cents” that many vendors only embraced after the event.
The push for capital collides with older complaints about equity on the festival floor, after vendors at previous editions said peripheral stalls left them “barricaded” from foot traffic while those in the main pavilion drew crowds.
Adegite said the team “took the lesson very quickly” when the problem surfaced, explaining that organisers reacted overnight to collapse barriers once they saw where “people are really coming here,” and promised, “Next time, we just made sure that it’s already open.”
Scale itself has become an issue, with the GTCentre’s 30,000 square meters of prime Lagos land described by Adegite as “big, big value,” requiring a second, larger tent “just to accommodate people and to accommodate more vendors and more businesses.”
Yet that same pressure to be bigger is why expansion is off the table for now, despite calls to take the festival to Abuja or across West Africa.
“Expansion to a less scary area. Maybe West Africa… But in terms of expansion, maybe not now. First, it is difficult to maintain the quality and the standards,” Adegite said.
He added that, “It’s just us, as always, bigger, better. Always bigger, better, always.”
The gatekeeping issue is equally blunt, with vendor selection hinged on digital footprint and focus. “Presence… consistency… and the fact that you have a good presence online and people can connect with you already,” are non-negotiable, Adegite said.
“We don’t want a jack of all trades. Today, I’m making drinks for you. I’m working for a corporation in that crowd. Which one exactly are you? Consistency wins… the journey of life generally.”
For Agbaje, the bigger issue is what the festival represents beyond commerce: “What makes this platform special is not just its scale, but its humanity. It brings together people from different walks of life around something universal – food and drink – and in doing so, it breaks barriers and builds connections that extend far beyond the event itself.”
Still, journalists demanded receipts after nine years, pressing for concrete data to prove the festival is “about enabling SMEs” and not just spectacle.
Adegite conceded the point, saying the bank will “track that and see how we have helped push in terms of small and medium-scale businesses” with a report due by year 10, while stressing that the tagline remains “promoting enterprise” so businesses “not just survive but thrive over the years.”
With admission free, a children’s theatre “bigger this time around… more inclusive, more fun, engaging for children as well,” and interactive masterclasses on the programme, the festival is betting that access will translate to impact for its 204 vendors from May 1 to May 3, 2026.
“We’ll just be sure that the experience continues to be top notch,” Adegite said.
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