Where to List Your Events in Kilifi (2026): Beyond the WhatsApp Groups

Kilifi has an unusually good events culture and an unusually bad way of telling anyone about it. Yoga on the Plantation, fitness classes, kite clinics at Bofa, sunset dhow trips on the creek, workshops, supper clubs, and a festival calendar that punches far above the size of the town. Almost all of it is organised through word of mouth and community WhatsApp groups. If you are already in those groups it works beautifully. If you arrived last month, or you are here for two weeks, you will miss essentially all of it.

This is what makes Kilifi different from a visitor town. In Watamu the challenge is that people are searching and cannot find you. In Kilifi the challenge is that nobody is searching, because the whole town has quietly agreed that events happen on WhatsApp. That works right up until you want to grow past the people who already know you.

• A new resident takes months to get added to the groups that matter.
• Visitors and long stay guests are never added at all.
• A poster in one cafe reaches the people who go to that cafe.
• An Instagram story reaches your existing followers and then vanishes.
• Anyone researching Kilifi before they arrive finds nothing at all.

If you are charging for entry, you need a way to take money. If you want new faces, you need a way to be found. These are different tools and most organisers only ever set up the first one.

For paid tickets, Mookh is where most small Kenyan organisers end up, mainly for the fast M-Pesa payouts. Ticketsasa is the older, more corporate option, Quicket suits festivals, and HustleSasa works if you are already selling to an audience. None of them will bring you someone who did not know your event existed.

Notice how much of that right hand column is a closed channel. The festivals are the exception, and it is not a coincidence that they are also the events that draw people from outside Kilifi.

Our Kilifi event section is close to empty right now. That is not a pitch, it is the current state, and it cuts both ways. There is no crowd of existing listings sending you traffic. There is also nobody standing between your event and the top of the page.

What we bring is the audience rather than the calendar. People land on our Kilifi guides while planning a trip or after arriving, and there is currently nothing on those pages telling them what is on this week. That is the gap.

• Listing an event is free and reviewed by a person within about twenty four hours.
• Ticketing is built in through Paystack, so attendees can pay by M-Pesa or card.
• Tickets carry a QR code and there is a door scanner, so check in is not a clipboard.
• Free events are welcome, and plenty of what happens in Kilifi should stay free.
• Recurring classes are listed once with a schedule rather than reposted weekly.
• You can run coupons, set ticket tiers, and watch sales as they happen.

Why being early actually matters here

In Watamu our event section has a few things on it. In Kilifi it has almost nothing. Whoever lists the first regular yoga class, the first kite clinic and the first supper club will own those searches for a long time, because the pages that rank are the ones that existed first and collected the most history. That window is open now and will not stay open.

You can list your event here, choosing Event at the first step. Five minutes, nothing to pay.

Timing is worth thinking about too. Kilifi swings between a quiet residential town and a packed one around the festival season and the holidays. Our complete Kilifi guide covers the rhythm of the year, and the restaurant guide is a decent map of where people already gather in the evenings.

Where can I advertise my event in Kilifi?

Most Kilifi events run on WhatsApp community groups and word of mouth, which works for regulars and reaches nobody else. For paid ticketing use Mookh, Ticketsasa or Quicket. To reach new residents, visitors and people planning a trip, add a public listing that anyone can find by searching, and keep the groups for the people already coming.

Is it free to list an event on Klickenya?

Yes. Listing is free, a person reviews it within about twenty four hours, and free events are as welcome as paid ones. Ticketing runs through Paystack, so standard payment processing fees apply to paid tickets exactly as they would on any other platform.

Can I take payment by M-Pesa?

Yes. Ticketing runs through Paystack, which handles both M-Pesa and card. Tickets are issued with a QR code and there is a door scanner, so you check people in from a phone rather than crossing names off a printed list.

Can I list a weekly yoga or fitness class?

Yes, and in Kilifi this is probably the highest value thing on the platform. A recurring class is listed once with its schedule rather than reposted every week, which means someone who arrived yesterday can find your Tuesday class without needing to be in the right WhatsApp group first.

Why not just use the Kilifi WhatsApp groups?

Keep using them. They are one of the genuinely good things about living here. The limitation is that they are closed by design: new residents take months to be added, short stay visitors never are, and nobody researching Kilifi from Nairobi or abroad can see anything at all. A public listing covers the people the groups cannot.

When is the busiest time for events in Kilifi?

The stretch around New Year is by far the busiest, when the festival crowd arrives and the town is full. The dry months either side are strong for wellness and watersports. The long rains are quiet, which makes them a reasonable time to start something small and build an audience without competing with everything else.

Kilifi does not have an events problem. It has a visibility problem. There is more happening here per head than in most Kenyan towns, and almost none of it is findable by anyone outside the loop. Keep the community groups for your regulars and put one public listing up for everybody else.

List your Kilifi event on Klickenya

Free to list. Reviewed in 24 hours. M-Pesa and card ticketing with QR check in. Yoga, fitness, kite clinics, supper clubs, dhow trips, workshops, festivals. Right now the Kilifi section is nearly empty, which means whoever lists first gets found first.

→ List your event · See what is on · Running events in Watamu instead?

If you run a business rather than events, see where to list your business in Kenya. For the town itself, start with the complete Kilifi guide, the restaurant guide and Bofa Beach. Families relocating here often ask about schooling, which we cover in the Kivukoni School guide. Browse Kilifi for the rest.