Oct 20, 2021
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The MUSON Centre is truly a remarkable place for anyone to see. Everything from its tastefully designed auditoriums – Mobil Block, The Agip Recital Hall, The multi-purpose Shell Nigeria Hall, iconic divisions – MUSON Choir, Symphony Orchestra, Festival and School of Music, and beautiful scenery made me feel like I was lost in the richness of indigenous classical artistry.
In November of 2019 when I visited the MUSON Centre for the second time, I thought it a weird coincidence that this was the venue for this year’s edition of the Nigeria Travel Week (NTW) Roundtable. Hopping on a BRT in a rush to avoid the “world renowned” Lagos traffic, I reminisced about the colourful stage performance of “Oba Esugbayi” crew. Plus I got a chunk of knowledge from the NTW buddies.
But wait! This isn’t about “Oba Esugbayi” or “Harnessing Creative Potentials of Culture-Rich Destinations,” today I’m sharing what made me fall in love with the MUSON Centre (a.k.a. Musical Society of Nigeria).
Here’s why you definitely should see the MUSON Centre. Trust me, you’ll love it.
1. Proximity
First off, the MUSON Centre is located at the same neighbourhood as the Tafawa Balewa Square (TBS) at 8/9, Marina Road, Onikan, Lagos Island. In 2018 when I won two tickets to see a stage play, courtesy of Maryland Mall, I thought it’ll be a hard place to locate especially with the busy crowds in the area.
In retrospect, it was really easy to find even without the use of Google Maps. Asides it’s pristine location, MUSON is situated in close proximity to a great combination of places.
So maybe you arrive the venue way too early or you need a breather between breaks, Places to visit include the City Mall, Onikan Stadium, National Museum, KFC and TBS to mention a few. Experience Onikan.
2. Greenery
MUSON Centre is a replica of the Aurora Conference Centre, it is so greeeeeeen and it features a nice lawn, healthy shrubs, alike trees and a cardinal of alluring spaces blessed by “Gaea.” Sidewalks, Fountains and a Beautiful Scenery.
The Landscape is a therapeutic and colourful collage of Mother Nature.
3. Parking
…And I warn you stop serving food during announcement you will not hear word Please if you are the one that park this motto A1-237 You are blocking G-Wagon come and move your gallopin – Falz
You know those type of Lagos Events that basically shut down the city specifically because of difficult or inadequate parking spaces. MUSON Centre voids this nonsense with an impeccably sized car park thumbtacked across its premises.
In recent development, the Lagos State Government issued a statement saying that Event Centres expected to accomodate more than fifty vehicles would henceforth report to the State Traffic Agency – LASTMA. And as serious as this gets, it’s about time!
MUSON is great for guests, family, friends and loved ones because there’s no need to bother yourself about where they’ll park. The gate lock also secures vehicles from all possible thefts. So you won’t be leaving here with a bad headache.
4. Security
Remember when I said you never have to worry about losing a thing. Well, that’s absolutely true.
Imagine throwing a massive event with big names in the business and thinking of your guests safety all the time. MUSON Centre offers you the peace of mind guaranteed for the big man or woman that you definitely are.
5. Interior
One of the clearest signs of a world class theatre is the enormous chasm between the indoors and outdoors.
I’ve been sharing what I love about the MUSON Centre’s landscape and everything else so what happens inside? Let me just start by saying, it’s a beautiful thing.
Indoors, I’m talking of the AGIP RECITAL HALL, there’s a spacious waiting room for guests and squeaky clean restrooms for convenience on the ground floor. When a stage play, musical performance or public ceremony begins, guests are invited up into the hall to witness splendor and it’s always fun.
Consisting of a bold stage and very comfy seating (you may sleep off), the hall is perfect for noise cancellation and acoustics. Lighting in the civic auditorium is another detail the designers paid good attention to.
Again, MUSON Centre’s design makes it easy for the audience to evacuate the building because of a bi-entry point. It’s neat, echo-free and air conditioned. You should be here. It’s excellent and I’m sure you’ll love it.
The Last Thing Before I Go…
Established in 1983, The MUSON Centre is famous for many prestigious events, it is a place you definitely should see while touring Lagos. Plus, you want to visit when there’s something on.
November 2019 made it my second time at MUSON Centre (a.k.a. the capital of theatre in the city of excellence), and I’m so glad I got the chance to come through.
Have you been to the Muson centre? Please share in the comments below. Thanks for reading and don’t forget to subscribe.
Have an amazing yuletide season!
5 REASONS WHY I ABSOLUTELY LOVE THE MUSON CENTRE The MUSON Centre is truly a remarkable place for anyone to see. Everything from its tastefully designed auditoriums - Mobil Block, The Agip Recital Hall, The multi-purpose Shell Nigeria Hall, iconic divisions - MUSON Choir, Symphony Orchestra, Festival and School of Music, and beautiful scenery made me feel like I was lost in the richness of indigenous classical artistry.
WHY AURORA MAY BE THE BEST EVENT CENTRE IN OSOGBO
I don visit many event centres for Osogbo and with wetin I see today, all of dem join no reach Aurora for any level – anonymous
About a month ago, I was at the popular Bics Garden and Boat Club for an event – Barfest19 and that was officially my first “event writeup” on this blog. I recently attended a conference at Aurora Conference Centre which was so fantastic and I just had to write!
Admitte…
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La 3 del Senpa / Valentín Sanz
An Embarrassment of Tim Tams, Part Three: Island Time
I wake up around 1:00am, and in spite of my efforts to fall back asleep, I toss and turn until 3:00. I finally take a couple of klonopin and drift back to sleep until my alarm wakes me up at 6:00.
I meet Sohel in the hotel restaurant for the free breakfast. It's a small buffet with a few international breakfast items, but the fruit is what catches my attention: beautiful slices of pineapple and whole coconuts that have been prepared for drinking with a container of bendy straws to the side. I pile on the fruit and grab some fried rice and eggs. The eggs are a bit runny, but the fruit is amazing. It's been so long since I've had pineapple this sweet and coconut juice this fresh.
I send Kim a message, and we chat for a few minutes. She has a doctor's appointment later today - I hate having to miss it. I send her a picture of my plate of fruit, and she tells me she's jealous. She says that she enjoyed reading my first blog post for this trip, because she got to learn something new about me (namely my love of Tim Tams).
Sohel and I arrive at Multipurpose Hall around 8:00 and meet up with Victor, who lets us into the room. The tables and chairs have arrived, but they're set up dining style, not the way we had requested, and there are no computers. Victor helps us move the tables to the edges of the room so the computers can be plugged in whenever they arrive, and we arrange the chairs classroom-style in the middle. Fred and Megan show up around 8:30 with two of the three laptops from yesterday. Victor also manages to scare up three desktop computers from another part of the hall, but they're running an older version of Windows, and my cloned installation won't work on them. I try to troubleshoot the problem, but to no avail. Without Internet access, there's no way to install the proper version for these computers.
The workshop participants begin wandering in close to 9:00. I notice that as each signs in, they are handed a yellow envelope. I know that the participants get paid, but I wonder if paying them on the first day is a good idea, since they may not be motivated to come back. They continue to trickle in over the next hour, and even though many of them have yet to arrive, Sohel begins the workshop a little before 9:30. Fred opens things up by introducing us to the participants and mentioning some of the other people who helped coordinate the event. As soon as he's done, he and Megan leave for a meeting but promise to bring some more computers with them when they return.
Sohel asks the participants to introduce themselves. The majority of them seem to be affiliated in some way or other with the City Council. I begin to wonder how well these participants represent the local community, but two more waves of participants arrive after 10:00 - a cluster of students from two nearby high schools and another assorted group who I'm told will only be present for the consultation portion of the workshop.
Sohel wraps up his initial presentation on public space and urban planning and divides the participants into six groups to discuss their needs. He asks them to list current problems at Multipurpose Hall and the surrounding area, solutions to those problems, and finally to describe their ideal public space. They set to work immediately, and quickly fill up the large pieces of flip chart paper they've been given.
After about twenty minutes, we gather the groups back together to share the results of their discussions. Practical issues like security, sanitation and waste management, access to drinking water, and access for people with disabilities top their lists. As a solution to their concerns about security, several groups propose a fence around the property. Sohel begins to argue that a fence would limit access to the space and would be counter to the purpose of the project, but the participants don't back down. They explain that vandalism and crime are constant problems, and that the fence wouldn't be intended to prevent access, but to allow for easier monitoring of those entering and exiting the space, which would help to prevent these issues. Both Sohel and the participants make valid points, leaving me feeling ambivalent about the issue.
The presentations end up running a bit long due to how late some of the participants arrived, so we don't break for lunch until 1:30. We're served simple, traditional fare: rice, kaukau (a variety of sweet potato), taro, greens, chicken, and more fruit. I dig in, enjoying the familiar flavors. I try the taro, but I realize I had never developed much of a taste for it (too starchy). In the highlands of PNG, kaukau was our staple, and the taste and texture fills me with nostalgia.
William, a student from University of the South Pacific, introduces himself to me and expresses his excitement at being involved in the workshop. He asks me whether I would be willing to install Minecraft on his personal laptop if he brought it tomorrow. Realizing that this may be a solution to our computer shortage, I agree; however, by the end of the lunch break, several other participants have come to me with the same question. I'm nervous about installing the software on people's personal computers, and based on my earlier experience with the desktops, I'm unsure whether this will even work, but with our computer shortage, it seems like the best solution.
After lunch Sohel says a few brief words before giving me the floor. We still only have two computers, which worries me, since the participants won't be able to practice any of the things I am about to teach them. I decide to push as far through my tutorials as possible in the hope that the computers will arrive before I'm finished. I introduce myself in Tok Pisin and tell them about my background, apologizing for my Papua New Guinea style Tok Pisin. Several of them laugh at this and respond that they can understand me fine. I begin by showing them FyreUK's preliminary model of the site and showing them the basic controls, but without computers to refer to, I can tell that some of them are a bit confused. I get about halfway through the building tutorials before Fred and Megan return with more computers around 4:00. The participants take a short coffee break while I set them up, and in the end, there's still 40 minutes left for them to play with the software. Just like in Khulna, they take to the game very quickly and already have begun to make some modifications to the site model by the time we wrap up for the day. In spite of the positive outcome, I feel like we rushed through the material for the day and worry that this will be a problem as the workshop progresses.
Sohel introduces me to another one of the participants, Phillip, who has agreed to take us to do some souvenir shopping at Central Market. I really need to get a local sim card for my phone so that Kim can call me in case of an emergency, but the Telekom office is already closed for the day. The market is bustling. Just inside the entrance, we pass tables filled with bottles of locally harvested coconut oil. Most of the market is dedicated to practical goods like fruits and vegetables, but near the back are several tables of local crafts. I find two carefully carved sets of shell earrings and a matching for Kim. Several other items catch my eye, but I decide to come back on my own on Saturday, since I'll have the whole day to explore. Leaving the market, we try to visit a few of the stores lining the street, but they're all getting ready to close, so we decide to head back to the hotel.
After a shower and a change of clothes, I head down to the lobby and consider my dinner options. I'm too tired to explore, so I try the Thai restaurant in the hotel. The pad krapao is decent, but pricey. I try to hop online and check on my students in Arkansas, but can't seem to get a connection. There are about ten other people in the lobby using laptops or tablets, so I assume the hotel's one access point must be overloaded. I head back up to my room and take a brief nap. I try my computer in the lobby again around 10:00, but still have no luck. Out of desperation, I end up buying a 50mb access card for the in-room WiFi so that I can chat with Kim and at least check and respond to any emails from my students.
Kim tells me that her doctor's visit went well. The baby's heartbeat was strong, her blood pressure was fine, nothing was out of the ordinary. Even though these doctor's visits are all the same, I feel a twinge of regret at having to miss this one. My 50mb of data expire about as quickly as I expected, and the distance between me and my home feels wider than ever.
STENCIL MURAL MULTIPURPOSE HALL MIXPACE_03
STENCIL MURAL MULTIPURPOSE HALL MIXPACE_02
memories of big halls, and new structures
Since childhood, we've always associated big multipurpose sports halls with community events. Those halls were where school dances, ballet performances and school musicals were performed ... they had the smell of sausage sizzles and hairspray, the texture of crepe paper and freshly ripped fluro mesh, the sweaty glare of spotlights, the splat of velcro gym mats onto shiny wood floors. Remember the obligatory bush dance, where you had to do the heel-and-toe? And the indoor-school fete on rainy Saturdays? The squeak of sneakers on the floor, and the struggle to detach a stack of firmly wedged plastic chairs? Well, Ultimo has a new multipurpose hall, and hopefully UTS will share it with the community. The new UTS Multipurpose Sports Hall opens on April 14, 2011, and they're celebrating the opening by holding a gala sports event, which includes netball and sausages, among other relatively obvious things. The new hall is located under the Alumni Green and near the existing UTS fitness centre, and was designed by an Australian practice, PTW.
Our big question is: will there be a dojo? More info here