From the middle of December into the new year Accra becomes a different city. The diaspora comes home, the artists come home, and there is a concert, a festival, a beach party or a wedding every night. Locals call it Detty December - detty is Pidgin for dirty, in the sense of unrestrained - and it has grown every year since the Year of Return.

It is the best time of year to be in Accra, and the most expensive, and the two facts need planning together.

What happens

The festivals. The headline events are the big music festivals. Their dates are announced each year, usually in the autumn, and they sell out:

  • Afro Nation Ghana - late december. The largest of the December music festivals, and the anchor of the season a lot of the diaspora flies in for.
  • Afrofuture - late december. The December festival formerly called Afrochella, and one of the fixtures of the Accra festive season.

Around them sit dozens of smaller parties, day parties, beach events and concerts, most announced only a few weeks ahead, on the promoters’ own pages.

The beaches. Labadi and the beaches east and west of the city have day parties through the season, and the beach clubs run sunset sessions into the night.

— Accra’s beaches

Church, family and food. For most of Accra, December is Christmas: church services that fill to the doors, family gatherings, and the season’s food - jollof, chicken, and more of everything.

Weddings and homecomings. December is the wedding season for the diaspora, and the time families gather for outdoorings and funerals that waited for everyone to be home.

— Funerals and social obligations

The holidays

The public holidays in December 2026:

  • Friday 4 December - Farmers' Day
  • Friday 25 December - Christmas Day
  • Saturday 26 December - Boxing Day

With those and the drift towards the new year, the last weeks of December are short for anything official. Government offices are effectively closed from the middle of the month; do the paperwork before it.

— Public holidays, and what closes

What it costs

Everything that a visitor needs rises in December, because everyone needs it at once:

  • Flights fill early and fares rise; book months ahead, not weeks. — Flying into Accra · Every nonstop route from Accra
  • Short lets and hotels in Osu, Labone, Cantonments and East Legon cost far more than the rest of the year, and the good ones are gone by October.
  • Tickets for the headline festivals go up in tiers as the date nears; the early tier is the cheap one.
  • Nights out cost more, and the clubs sell tables at December prices. — Nightclubs in Accra

Getting around

The traffic in Osu, Labadi, East Legon and around the airport is the thing everybody complains about. A short hop in October can take most of an evening, and ride-hailing prices surge every night the big events end.

  • Stay close to where you will spend your evenings.
  • Leave early for the airport - very early.
  • Walk the last part to a big event when the road has stopped.

— Getting around Accra

Staying safe

The crowds are good-natured, and the risks are the ordinary ones of a busy season: phones snatched in a crush, fake tickets sold in comments and direct messages, and short-let listings that do not exist.

If you live here

December is a good month to be busy early and quiet late. Get anything official done in the first fortnight, shop for Christmas before the markets fill, and choose a handful of nights rather than all of them. Many people leave the city for their home towns over Christmas, so the last days of the year can be surprisingly calm in the neighbourhoods away from the parties.

— Weather and seasons in Accra

Running something in December

If you are putting on a December event, send it to the events calendar as soon as the date is confirmed. It is free, and a person checks it before it is listed.

— List your event
— How to get your event listed and seen

Where next

— What is on in Accra
— Festivals in Ghana
— Live music in Accra
— Visiting Accra