How Switch Visuals’ Damilola Osikoya Brought Sponsors and Partners Together for a World-Record Night

 The founder behind Nigeria’s Guinness-certified film screening on what it took to pair a live event with the brands and institutions that backed it.




On Saturday, September 26, 2026, more than 51,000 people gathered at Tafawa Balewa Square (TBS), Lagos, for a screening of the Nollywood crime thriller Black Market, setting a new Guinness World Record for the largest attendance at a film screening in a single location. The previous record of 43,624 was set in 2015 by the Filipino film Felix Manalo at the Philippine Arena.

For founders, the more useful story sits behind the headline number. Damilola Osikoya, CEO of Switch Visuals and head of Voyage Quest Travels, was credited as Event Production Producer. She was the engine behind the record attempt, and she also brought sponsors and partners on board.

 

Who backed it

Organisers acknowledged Zenith Bank, Oraimo, Johnnie Walker Blonde, the Lagos State Ministry of Culture and Tourism and Swoop, among other partners. The line-up spans banking, consumer electronics, spirits and government, and all of them attached their names to a first-of-its-kind attempt.

The film behind the record

The screening used Black Market, produced by Nora Awolowo of Rixel Studios and directed by Fatimah Binta Gimsay. Osikoya is clear that the two jobs were different: one team made a film people would travel for, and the other built the event to hold them.

“This wasn’t a movie premiere with a crowd. This was a live, unrepeatable event with 51,000 moving parts, and it had exactly one chance to work.”

What founders can take from it

• Treat funding and delivery as one job. Sponsors were part of how the event was built, not an afterthought.

• Build the coalition across sectors. Private brands and a state ministry backed the same night.

• Credit the people who supply the spark. Osikoya publicly thanked the film’s producer, which keeps the partnership open for the next project.

“Nobody builds a night like this alone. To Zenith Bank, Oraimo, Johnnie Walker Blonde, the Lagos State Ministry of Culture and Tourism and Swoop, thank you for backing an idea nobody had tried before. And to Nora Awolowo and the Black Market team, thank you for giving us a film worth gathering for.”

Black Market opens in nationwide cinemas in the coming weeks. Osikoya says the night “won’t be the last.”

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