Scarce venues and stingy party animals: The two big thorns in Nakuru's events flesh

Nakuru’s event scene is undeniably finding its groove, but is the city vibing at full throttle yet?

While cities like Eldoret are pulling off mega-events back-to-back, Nakuru is still mapping out its events topography, with weather challenges especially on rainy days, limited venues, and a cautious crowd shaping how far the beat goes.

We caught up with the Switch Concept founder Samuel Gitonga, aka Sammy Gito, one of the brains behind some of Nakuru’s most hyped events.

According to Gito, while the pulse of Nakuru’s entertainment scene is alive, its tempo is still picking up.

“We are getting bigger spaces, better tech, and more ambitious ideas but there is a lot to improve on,” he notes.

One of the biggest challenges, he says, is lack of sufficient indoor spaces that could fit the ideal audience for a particular event.

With this lacking, most event organisers in Nakuru have to resort to building ‘A frames ‘or ‘Dome’ tents when they want to achieve an indoor set up.

 “The cost of building these tents is on the high end. Consider additional requirements like sound, security and lighting and the cost is between a million and two,” he notes.

According to Gito, the lack of proper indoor venues results to few events scheduled in Nakuru between April and July, because of the rainy season.

On her part CEO of Great Rift Valley Awards Eddah Nkoyo says the use of same venue for multiple events is a bummer for Nakuru’s creative space.

“The only thing that changes is the theme and acts coming to an event. This steals the joy of exploring the city. People tend to frequent the same venue for different events. At times this makes people not see the value for their money especially for events with ticket purchase,” she explains.

According to her, many event organisers only consider NAC, Rift valley sports club, Kunste Grounds, Arthur gardens and Nyayo gardens, all which are within the city centre’s vicinity.

The low spending culture among Nakuru residents doesn’t help either.

“People love to attend events, but they’re not always willing to pay premium for the experience. Also, If you take your event outside town the turn up tends to reduce because people want to cut on travel cost to the venue.”

For Eddah, a solution would be found if Nakuru builds better indoor set ups and the spending culture shifts from stingy to generous.