Nollywood crime thriller Black Market has set a new Guinness World Records benchmark for the largest attendance at a film screening in a single location, after 51,000 viewers stayed through its screening at Tafawa Balewa Square in Lagos.
The record was confirmed by Guinness World Records after the screening held on Saturday, with only viewers who remained from the beginning to the end of the film counted towards the qualifying attendance.
The organisers had targeted 50,000 simultaneous viewers to break the previous record of 43,624, set in 2015 during a screening of the Filipino film Felix Manalo at the Philippine Arena.
Although Lagos State Deputy Governor Obafemi Hamzat announced that 64,000 people attended the event, the official Guinness World Records figure was 51,000 qualifying viewers.
The confirmation triggered celebrations at TBS, with the crowd cheering as fireworks were set off to mark the achievement.
Thousands of movie lovers had gathered at the venue, with long queues reported earlier in the day. The gates opened at 2pm, while the red carpet began at about 3pm ahead of the main screening at 7pm.
The event also featured music, food, games and other entertainment activities.
Among those who attended were Hamzat, the Lagos State Commissioner for Tourism, Arts and Culture, Toke Benson, and Nollywood actors including Lateef Adedimeji, Kunle Remi, Stan Nze, Linda Ejiofor, Gabriel Afolayan and Kunle Afolayan.
Directed by Fatimah Binta Gimsay and co-written by Gimsay and Abdul Tijani-Ahmed, Black Market centres on five women involved in a cross-border smuggling operation whose lives are disrupted after the daughter of one of them is kidnapped.
The film features Linda Ejiofor-Suleiman, Lateef Adedimeji, Omowunmi Dada, Scarlet Gomez, Teniola Aladese, Susan Pwajok, Itele D Icon and Uzor Arukwe, among others.
The screening was organised by Rixel Studios in collaboration with FilmOne Studios, Signet Ring Studios and Switch Visuals Production as an official Guinness World Records attempt.
The event was designed to surpass the 43,624-attendance record established more than a decade ago at the Philippine Arena.
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