The Story ⚡
For four days in November, Lagos becomes a city-wide negotiating table for Africa’s creative industries. Canex Wknd 2026’s full programme has just been released, and it reads like nothing the event has done before.
Tell Me More
Canex Wknd is Afreximbank’s flagship annual gathering for Africa’s creative and cultural industries, and this November it lands in Lagos for the first time; organisers are calling it the largest edition yet. The event runs from November 5–8, 2026 at the Wole Soyinka Centre for Cultural & Creative Arts, under the theme “One People, United in Culture, Creating for the World — From FESTAC ’77 to CANEX ’27,” a direct nod to the 1977 Lagos festival that remains one of the largest gatherings of Black creatives in history. Attendance is free, but registration is required.
What Canex Wknd Is
Canex Wknd connects creatives across film, music, fashion, literature, arts and design, gastronomy, and sports with investors, policymakers, and each other. It’s backed by Afreximbank’s $2 billion commitment to creative industries for 2024–2027. The last edition, held in Algiers in 2024, facilitated $540 million in deals with participants from 81 countries and 108+ exhibitors. Lagos 2026 is expected to draw more than 4,000 creatives, buyers, investors, and policymakers.
Previous editions were held in Abidjan (2022), Cairo (2023), and Algiers (2024). This is the first time the event has landed in West Africa, putting it directly on top of Nollywood and Afrobeats’ home turf instead of importing one.
The Full Programme, Day by Day
Some things stay open across all four days (09:00–17:00), alongside registration (08:00–17:00):
CANEX Exhibition — creative entrepreneurs, brands, and businesses exhibiting and selling
CANEX Visual Arts Exhibition: “Inheritance: Artists Across Generations” — elder, mid-career, and emerging artists
CANEX Luxury Fashion Xchange — invite-only luxury African fashion and accessories
CANEX Book Fair — a market for publishers, distributors, and writers
Creative Economy Technology Showcase & Innovation Lab — African-led digital tools for creation, distribution, and monetisation
Fashion Installation: “Threads of a Nation” — tracing 50+ years of Nigerian fashion
CANEX Music Factory 2.0 (5–7 Nov) — Music Business Lab and Songwriting Camp
CANEX Deal Room (5–7 Nov) — creative projects pitching directly to financiers and investors
Day 1 — Thursday, 5 November
The day opens with registration and the semi-finals of the CANEX Junior Chefs Competition 2.0, for Nigerian chefs aged 16–21, alongside masterclasses on Africa’s tea and specialty crop economy and food safety standards presented by ARSO.
The afternoon runs as parallel sessions across several rooms. Finance and IP dominate one track, creative economy finance roundtables, an IP Rights Summit, a Pan-African Payment & Settlement System masterclass, and a MANSA masterclass on becoming investment-ready. A second track covers publishing and music business (manuscript marketing, independent artist branding, a Music Business Lab session on music creation with CIIFA). A third covers film, sport, and the creator economy, including a CAF symposium and the first 30 CANEX Shorts screenings. Fashion gets its own track too, with masterclasses on building profitable fashion brands and a session on Africa’s textile value chain, “From Fibre to Future.”
The day closes with the Opening Ceremony & Cocktail at the National Theatre’s Main Bowl.
Day 2 — Friday, 6 November
The morning is anchored by the Summit’s opening at the Banquet Hall, with a keynote and the panel “One Market, One Culture: Building the Creative Economy of Global Africa,” an AUC presentation, and a session on AI’s disruption of creative work. The Junior Chefs finals also take place this morning.
The afternoon splits between Afrobeats’ global rise (“African Sound: From Movement to Market”), a second round of Creative Pitch Sessions, sport and esports talent pipelines, a panel on cultural restitution and heritage IP, and a fireside chat with a live performance. The CANEX Create-Thon, a four-day AI creative sprint with a $50,000 prize pool, also gets underway.
The evening belongs to the CANEX Fashion Show & Awards Night at 19:00, including the 2026 CANEX Awards.
Day 3 — Saturday, 7 November
Day 3 shifts toward food and film: the Africa Jollof Wars Competition 3.0 pits Nigeria, Ghana, Senegal, and Cameroon against each other; film screenings include Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti and I Do Not Come to You by Chance, and a live demonstration titled “From Suya to Kota” looks at scaling Global Africa’s fast food industry. The day ends with the CANEX WKND 2026 Concert.
Day 4 — Sunday, 8 November
The final day slows the pace with cultural excursions around Lagos, a CANEX Food Pop-Ups vendor competition, more film screenings (Muganga and From Dust to Dreams), and closes out with the CANEX Legends Football Match.
The Competitions to Watch
CANEX Junior Chefs Competition 2.0 — Nigerian chefs aged 16–21, semi-finals Day 1, finals Day 2
CANEX Shorts 2026 — 30 selected short films screening Day 1, three $2,000 prizes across fiction, documentary, and animation
CANEX Create-Thon, powered by Gebeya — a four-day AI creative sprint across Gaming, Video, and Music, with a $50,000 prize pool
Africa Jollof Wars Competition 3.0 — Nigeria, Ghana, Senegal, and Cameroon, Day 3
CANEX Food Pop-Ups Vendor Competition — Day 4
CANEX Creative Pitch Sessions — SMEs pitching to investors across Day 1 and Day 2
How to Register
Attending CANEX WKND 2026 is free, and registration is open now at wknd.canex.africa. That’s the only step needed to walk in as a delegate.
Taking part as a competitor is a separate process, and most of those windows have already closed for this edition. The CANEX Junior Chefs Competition 2.0 took applications from June 5–26, 2026, before shortlisting and semi-finals. CANEX Shorts entries went through FilmFreeway ahead of the 30 films now set to screen.
In Summary
Canex Wknd 2026 packs a full creative economy into four days, deals, masterclasses, competitions, and stagecraft, and it all plays out in Lagos starting November 5. Registration is open now at wknd.canex.africa.
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