Purpose Every community with the potential to organize a festival aims to actualize increased participation to transform the community image and socio-cultural cohesion. Hence, this study aims to investigate the motivational factors influencing festival participation of Eyo and Ojude Oba in southwestern Nigeria, using the push and pull and activity theories as theoretical footing. Design/methodology/approach Primary data was collected through questionnaire administration on members of the host communities. Geospatial data was collected on the number of buildings through high-resolution satellite imagery and maps sourced from the Cooperative Information Network (COPINE) of the National Space Research and Development Agency (NASRDA). Systematic sampling procedure was adopted to select 3% of the estimated 5231 and 4,934 buildings within the designated zones in Lagos Island and Ijebu Ode, respectively. In this case, 314 and 148 respondents were sampled in Lagos Island and Ijebu-Ode, respectively. Data collected were analyzed using mean index and factor analysis (principal component analysis). Findings This study revealed that the factors influencing participation of Eyo and Ojude Oba festivals comprise six and three factors, respectively, with varying contributions. Eyo festival explained 75.34% variance with varying factors extracted which are psychosocial (22.9%), proximity/mobility (9.93%), facility (13.41%), environmental/cultural (12.2%), demographic (10.65%) and health/safety factors (6.25%). While factors influencing Ojude-Oba festival comprises of sociocultural/psychological (35.44%), facilities/mobility (28.00%) and demographic factor (8.51%), thereby explaining 71.95% variation of factors influencing its participation. The study therefore, prove policy response in enhancing the destination receptors based on the influencing factors to promote positive words of mouth and encourage visitors’ intention to revisit. Originality/value This study focused on two distinguished festivals with internal homogenous and external heterogeneous features (Eyo and Ojude-Oba festivals). Ojude-Oba is an annual festival of class, whereas Eyo is non-annual traditional festival. Both festivals are mega, with similarities in the activities engaged in by the visitors and members of the communities, inform of colorful display of costumes, dances, chanting of songs and group parades among other activities.