Are music festivals getting Bollywood-ised?

The Indian music festival scene — for long the stomping grounds of the independent (indie, to the cool crowd) music scene-loving fans — saw Bollywood aka the mainstream make inroads, with headliner Amit Trivedi making his debut in the NH7 Weekender 2014 lineup and AR Rahman do one better in the 2015 edition. Weekender has taken a break from Bollywood this year. Enchanted Valley Carnival (EVC), however, has gone ahead and filled that ‘void’, devoting an entire stage to the genre, with the likes of Arijit Singh, Badshah and Farhan Akhtar as main draws this year.

But that’s not to say that Bollywood music lovers don’t have music festivals of their own on offer. After an 11-city tour, Bollyland (supposedly, the ‘biggest Bollywood Dance Music Festival’) had a gala concert culminating in June 2015 in Mumbai that had all the trappings of a one-day music festival and is currently an ongoing multi-city live event property. Also, earlier this year, Bollywood Music Project aka BMP, ‘Asia’s largest Bollywood music festival’ made its debut in Mumbai with a star-studded lineup. 

And if that is the case, why did the biggest music festivals take such a shine to Bollywood in the first place? We asked around…

In the beginning…

Vijay Nair, CEO of Only Much Louder, which organises the NH7 Weekender (touted as the ‘happiest music festival’) says he’d hardly call it a trend. The reason that Amit and Rahman made the list, he says, is because both were artists they wanted to work with. Amit performed for the first time in his career at Weekender in 2014. “The dream was to have AR Rahman at the festival,” Vijay admits, adding, “We were hoping it would happen in 10 years, but it happened sooner.”

In fact, he says, “Programming only happens basis of who we want to play. For us to think about an artist is to curate sets people have never seen before. Like last year, we had Vishal Dadlani and a bunch of people doing a Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan tribute. Things like that. Similarly, we have Shankar Mahadevan this year. He has singers from different states and he’s doing a curation of music from those states.”

Bollywood acts don’t necessarily sell at festivals like Weekender. He says, “Let’s take Amit, for example. I don’t think he moved any tickets for us because in 2014, the audience that came in, didn’t know who he was. It was the first time he had performed live… ever.” 

In fact, if you go by his assertion. Bollywood has miles and miles to go before eating up the indie music scene, “2016 is the highest selling year of NH7 and there’s not a single Bollywood performance this year,” adds Vijay.

Aaj ki baat

With Enchanted Valley Carnival (EVC) devoting an entire stage to Bollywood, we had to ask Devraj Sanyal, Managing Director and CEO, Universal Music Group, South Asia, one of the men behind EVC, why the change was warranted. He says, “Adding Bollywood to the lineup means giving fans a complete experience of multiple genres all packed over one weekend. We strategically decided to open up the festival this year to a larger audience by introducing and dedicating a stage to Bollywood music which ultimately makes it the largest multi-genre festival in the region. We want to be the Indian Glastonbury where there is something for every music lover in the region irrespective of their music tastes…”

It’s a move supported and seconded by Sanujeet Bhujabal, Marketing Director, Sony Music, “Bollywood music is now cutting through boundaries and the acceptance is huge. Fans want a bit of Bolly music at festivals to sing along and it is a welcome change. Our artists Badshah and Arjun Kanungo are performing at EVC and their song list is something that will keep fans asking for more.”

Saugato Bhowmik, Head, LIVE Viacom18 and Consumer Products, feels Bollywood is making inroads in the music festival scene and that the trend will continue. He believes, “Introducing Bollywood acts in non-Bollywood festivals helps uniquely cater to two sets of consumers: first, by adding a Bollywood act, there is a refreshed offering and an added experience for the existing audience and second, it creates an interest amongst Bollywood followers; thereby introducing them to a new music flavour through the festival’s existing lineup.”

He explains the inception of Bollyland. He shares, “LIVE Viacom18’s property MTV Bollyland was conceived through our understanding that Bollywood and Dance Music can go hand in hand. Bollyland has already established Bollywood Dance Music as a concrete genre that could be catered to consumers in form of a full grown music property.”

The idea behind BMP says Tarsame Mittal, Founder, Tarsame Mittal Talent Management, “was to create a festival that connected musicians with music lovers. The major intent was to launch a standalone Bollywood music festival. The concept was exciting and never done before.”

The way ahead...

But the question remains, are music festivals all set to get Bollywoodised? Devraj sure seems to think that is the way ahead. He says, “I know first-hand the volume of Bollywood music consumption in this country. We’ve had an outstanding response to all our artists and have audiences travelling across states to watch Arijit Singh and Farhan Akhtar perform live. A few weeks back, we saw Chris Martin of Coldplay singing along to one of Arijit’s popular tracks and the fans went mental. That just proves that the love and power of Bollywood music in this country is undeniable.” 

Vijay, however, remains sarcastic. “If you look at pure facts and not opinions, Bollywood festivals just doesn’t sell. Bollywood adds absolutely nothing to ticket sales because that audience doesn’t buy tickets. So if you look at Bollyland (it’s been around for four years now), it’s got nothing new that isn’t happening now anyway. You’ve had a festival that’s moved from an open-air ground to an auditorium, because of how little the ticket sales were.

Anybody in the concert industry knows this fact very well that Bollywood is what you do when you have a sponsor paying for it and then you just have people coming in to play. It just doesn’t work otherwise,” he concludes.