Page 41 - Forbes India (December 2015)

EntErprisE

livE EvEnts and music fEsts

Setting The Stage

The music festival ecosystem sustains
artistes, audiences and local economies.
But can it sustain itself?

By AngAd Singh ThAkur & PrAvin PAlAnde

he sleepy, upmarket property (IP)-driven events in
Koregaon Park area in particular. Just last year, the total
Pune doesn’t seem like number of organised events in India
T the ideal venue for a grew from 3,631 in 2013-2014 to
music festival. Its quiet, tree-lined 4,233 in 2014-15, according to a white
streets appear better suited to house paper compiled by industry body
the famous Osho Ashram that lies Event & Entertainment Management
hidden among them, than to play Association (EEMA) and Ernst &
host to raucous music lovers. Young. (IP events are the intangible
But in 2010, Sahej Bakshi, best assets owned by promoters who own
known for his solo project Dualist the rights to the event, which is, in
Inquiry, played his set at the after- this case, their intellectual property.)
party of the NH7 Weekender’s closing
ceremony there, to a crowd of 2,000- Different iDeas, similar Goals
odd people. “I was super excited, “The idea for NH7 came when I was
jumping all over the stage, doing these managing Pentagram [the band led
ridiculous hand-waving dance moves,” by Vishal Dadlani] and they were
Bakshi recalls. The artiset, whose booked to perform at the Glastonbury
set usually consists of electronica Festival [in England],” says Vijay Nair,
music with guitar influences, had CEO, Only Much Louder (OML),
broken onto the scene only recently. which runs the NH7 Weekender.
And although he had performed at The experience at Glastonbury left
clubs and smaller venues, this was an indelible impression on him. “To
particularly exhilarating. Five years see so many people come together,
and scores of festival performances so many bands, the sheer beauty
later, both the crowd and the festival, of it was overpowering,” he says.
then at a nascent stage, now seem It wasn’t an egalitarian non-profit
relatively small. But back then “it was enterprise either. The festival, which
a huge deal for me,” says Bakshi. is held annually in Somerset, England,
The same could be said for that reportedly managed to sell all its
weekend’s subsequent impact on 135,000 tickets within 25 minutes
live music festivals in India. Though last year. “The economy of the place
not the first event of its kind, the runs on this festival,” says Nair.
inaugural edition of the NH7 Bacardi Besides the impressive spectacle and
Weekender marked the beginning the economics of the festival, there
of what would become India’s was one other thing that stood out
largest multi-genre music festival. for Nair. “You don’t build a festival
This coincides with the rise in the with just one kind of music.” asHisH parmar
popularity of and demand for live Contrariwise, the first festival
events in general and intellectual to make the concept of ‘live music

DECEMBER 11, 2015 FORBES INDIA | 41