Assessing Cultural Management of Abuja Carnival

Culture is a major instrument for identifying a people. Over time, Nigeria’s diverse cultures have been celebrated with fun-fare and pageantry for tourism carnivals. The management process of such cultural celebrations becomes worthy of study. The concept of Cultural management is basically out to examine the influence of administration on a culturally-based festival like the Abuja carnival. The idea is to examine the past visions of the Carnival in comparison with the present challenges with the view of clearly solving such problems to ensure a more globally accepted product. The study employs the deductive and analytical methods of research to investigate the concept of Cultural management in Abuja Carnival. In the deductive method, we derive some vital information relevant to the study through interviews with some Artistic directors of the Abuja carnival. For the analytical method, we assess the cultural management through the review of related literatures, magazines and performance brochures. Among others, the study reveals that Abuja Carnival suffers serious funding challenge from its major sponsor which is the federal government of Nigeria. Also, despite having the same preparatory process, the approaches of the studied directors vary according to their perception of what a carnival should be which does not maintain the overall vision of the carnival. It also came to the fore that certain external factors such as national security challenge contribute to the factors militating against the targeted increase in foreign troupe participation in the Carnival. The study concludes that Abuja carnival have increased private sector sponsorship which will lessen the bureaucratic challenge from the major sponsor. Furthermore, private-sector driven sponsorship will accommodate healthy competition and encourage better result in revenue generation among others.