Community & Belonging · Indicator 4
Harm reduction & welfare
What this indicator asks
How widespread are harm reduction and welfare programmes at Lagos’s venues and events? Are they well resourced?
38.0/ 100 · Lagos
An expert said that at the larger electronic music events, welfare officers move through the crowd, checking whether anyone is being harassed or is overstimulated. They said a major festival pays for a welfare team, and a hospital partner sends two ambulances and four medical staff. For the seventh edition of the V Series beach rave, the welfare area is being built with Obodo, a Lagos queer rights organisation.
Another expert said welfare inside events is “heavily on the event organizer”, and that small paid businesses have started to supply it, most of them launched in 2026:
“People in the community are starting to see the gap… they’re launching agencies within the scenes. The community is just solving its own problems as the problems are arising. Somebody in the community would see this problem… and they’ll be like, okay, let me solve for that.”
A total of 71% of survey respondents say welfare or first aid staff would be helpful during incidents. But an expert said that the safety rules exist, and ambulances and medical staff are not visible at “a lot” of events. Welfare workers are mostly volunteers or friends, not trained professionals.