Somewhere in Osu tonight, there is a jam fest filling up with people. Most of them discovered the event the same way: through a friend’s repost, from recognizing the organizer’s name, or from knowing someone who knew someone. Meanwhile, someone in East Legon who promised herself she wasn’t going to wait for Detty December before starting to go out, is scrolling through ‘funny’ videos in the family group chat. It’s all good though. She’ll catch up in a week when her feed fills with short clips from the event while doomscrolling after ECG took the light.

In theory, discovering creative events in Accra should be very simple. Flyers on public Instagram pages with detailed event information, working RSVP links in bios, and contact numbers available for anyone who needs more information. However, finding the actual information you need feels like solving a puzzle with a missing center piece. The RSVP links don’t work, organizers ask attendees to DM for details with inactive contact numbers, and then respond the next day or not at all. And for many outsiders trying to enter Accra’s creative scene, there is a language you either speak or you don’t. Knowing where to look matters just as much as showing up.

Nayram, who spends much of her free time attending listening sessions and other creative events in Accra says unclear event information can sometimes be the difference between showing up and staying home.

“Sometimes they post about their parties and you’d have to get more information from the link in the bio,” she says. “The websites don’t really work. Sometimes you can even text them for information and it takes a long time before they give it to you and by the time they’ve given it to you it’s probably time for the event and you can’t go again.”

The issue is rarely a lack of events. If anything, Accra’s creative scene is oversaturated with movement. Underground music nights, art shows, listening sessions, and exhibitions happen constantly. The problem is that discovering them often depends less on searchability and more on proximity to the people already inside the loop.

Dzidula, an art curator and organizer who regularly works across Accra’s art scene, sees the problem up close. For many creatives, he says, social media has become the first venue audiences encounter before ever stepping into a physical space.

“I suppose social media has become the first gallery space people interact with before they ever attend physically. Sometimes people decide whether an exhibition or event is worth coming to based on how it looks online before they even understand the concept behind it to want to attend,” he says. “I believe people sometimes start creating for engagement before experience. There’s pressure for everything to look instantly appealing online, even before people fully connect with the actual art or atmosphere in person.”

“I believe people sometimes start creating for engagement before experience. There’s pressure for everything to look instantly appealing online, even before people fully connect with the actual art…”

Dzidula, art creator and organizer

That pressure has also changed how artists think about visibility itself. But audiences are only half of the equation. Before anyone can discover an event, they first have to discover the artist or the organizer behind it.

In conversations with musicians, artists, and organizers interviewed for this piece, hashtags were repeatedly described as unreliable, with several creatives insisting that online reach now depends more on whether a post can stop someone mid scroll with visually appealing content than on how well it is categorized.

Hiraeth, a mixed media digital artist who has spent years building an audience online says visibility often feels disconnected from the quality of your content. “The platform pushes people with organic following, once in a while a new artist would get a viral post and they’d have to do everything to ride that high to continue being relevant,” Hiraeth said. “Many may say it’s consistency that counts but I personally believe it’s two things, luck and connections, either you have one or you have the other.”

For artists, musicians and organizers, the algorithm has become the new doorman. Visibility is no longer just about creating something worth attending or with brightly colored visuals and fonts. It depends on whether the platform puts that work in front of people who will share it with others. And when the algorithm doesn’t push, even heavily promoted events can still underperform if a flyer is not picked up by the right accounts or reposted by recognizable names.

“People will tell you consistency is what counts. But honestly? It’s just luck and connections. You either have one, or you have the other.”

Hiraeth, mixed media artist

That dynamic has reshaped how creative spaces market themselves. Some events reveal locations late. Others keep details vague until hours before doors open. Mystery has become part of the aesthetic, and part of that secrecy is strategic.

“I think sometimes it’s intentional because mystery can create curiosity, especially in creative spaces,” Dzidula said. “But at the same time, if people don’t have enough information like the location, timing, or purpose, it can also make attendance harder. There’s a balance between building intrigue and making people feel informed enough to commit.”

For artists and organizers still building an audience, revealing too much too early can feel risky. Recognizable headliners can sell an event on site while a lesser known performer cannot. Keeping details cryptic creates curiosity, encourages speculation, and gives audiences a reason to keep paying attention. With audiences, mystery is only exciting up to a point. Most people still want enough information to decide whether or not an event is worth leaving the house for. A cryptic flyer sparks so many questions while answering none of the practical ones that help someone decide whether to attend.

Nayram explains that she usually knows the kind of spaces she’s looking for and decides based on whether an event aligns with her interest. Her frustration begins when basic information is hidden behind multiple links for last minute updates. “If it’s a ticketed event, let me know,” she says. “These flyers want you to go to the links first to know more about the event by the time you get there, tickets are already sold out.”

For audiences like Nayram, the issue is not curiosity but clarity. By the time someone has decided they want to attend an event, they start looking for the ticket price, the location, the lineup, and the reason to leave the house. As a new artist, withholding that information stops creating anticipation and starts giving people an easy reason to stay home.

Artists and organizers with already established audiences can afford ambiguity because their communities already understand what they are offering. Newer creatives don’t always have that luxury.

“I think artists who’ve consistently built a strong identity and community can use mystery effectively because people already trust the experience they create,” Dzidula continued. “But for a lot of emerging artists in Accra, that trust is still being built, so clarity matters more at that stage. People usually support what they understand and feel connected to.”

Mystery works when audiences already know what they’re being invited into. For newer artists and organizers, however, obscurity can easily be mistaken for exclusivity. What feels like intrigue from one side can feel like a closed door from the other.

Discoverability in Accra’s creative scene often functions socially before it functions publicly. Events circulate through existing networks first: reposts from mutuals, recommendations from friends, private group chats, or proximity to already visible circles. For newcomers, that can make participation feel strangely inaccessible despite how active the scene itself actually is.

Jayadi, an independent musician who has spent years building his audience on various streaming platforms after starting out on SoundCloud, also pointed to another tension: audience attention. He described struggling to get local engagement despite consistent posting online, saying his strongest support often comes from diaspora audiences rather than people physically inside Accra.

“Most of my audience was from England and other places abroad,” he says. “It was only when people started realizing I was actually Ghanaian that I started seeing more local listeners.”

Accra’s current creative scene has artists finding fans in London before finding them in Labone. For artists like Jayadi, building an international audience wasn’t a surprise. Building one at home was.

For audiences trying to find these spaces, the experience looks different but leads to the same frustration. By the next morning, the event you spent hours finding is suddenly everywhere with clips circulating on TikTok. Someone has posted a photo dump or a “get ready with me.” Another person is reposting blurry videos from the front row with captions about “the energy”. The location that felt impossible to find 12 hours earlier now seems obvious in hindsight.

Right now, Accra’s most exciting creative spaces can feel simultaneously hyper-visible and strangely hidden.

None of this means Accra’s creative scene is inactive. Far from it. On any given weekend, there is a room filled with people dancing to “Kakalika” before midnight with the conversations spilling into the early hours of the morning. The problem has never been whether Accra is creating enough culture. It’s whether the people creating it are making it easy for new audiences to find.

A discoverability gap is not inevitable. It is a series of decisions about who gets enough information, who gets invited in, and who is left searching. For a city with as much creative energy as Accra, the challenge is deciding how many people get the chance to experience it.

Accra does not need fewer hidden gems. It may simply need more people willing to leave the door slightly open behind them.

Written by: Sefakor Bobobee