Here’s A Pocket Friendly Budget For The Pune Bacardi NH7 Weekender 2016!

The happiest music festival of the country is back home for its 7th edition – Pune; this December 2nd to 4th. The Sherp has curated a pocket friendly budget for everyone who wants to experience the Weekender madness!

The Bacardi NH7 Weekender which had its inaugural gig in the city of Pune has always had a loyal fan base. The title of being ‘The happiest music festival’ is well deserved once you see the faces of the people inside the festival grounds. The Weekender is one of the few remaining events in the largely saturated festival circuit who actually strive to put up extremely diverse lineups each year.

They aim to include genres of each type- right from folk music, EDM, rock, hip-hop and even Bollywood, you name it- they’ve got it on the roster! Owing to their never-ending success, the festival has traveled all over the country to Hyderabad, Shillong, Delhi, Kolkata and Bengaluru only to be received with open arms by loving crowds. This year, the Shillong and Hyderabad legs of the tour have concluded in grand fashion and now the Weekender comes back home. The Weekender is back to home base from the 2nd to 4th December in Pune. They’ve also come up with a new venue this time around, foregoing their favorite Laxmi Lawns in Magarpatta.

The stipulated venue for this year’s Weekender is Life Republic, Hinjewadi, Pune!

We give you a breakdown for the most pocket friendly way you can tackle the 3 day mega event and still have the best moments to relive!

1. The Line-up

Every year, the Weekender is known to conjure up some of the most insanely well rounded line ups which caters to people who prefer different genres. This year, they’ve outdone themselves yet again by getting some of the biggest musical stalwarts on a single stage! Some of the biggies that you’ll witness live in action are Steven Wilson, Anoushka Shankar, Jose Gonzalez, The Joy Formidable, DJ Premier, RAC (DJ Set) and Nucleya among many other Indian as well as international artists!

2. Festival Tickets

This is pretty last minute for you to grab your Weekender passes, but worry not, there are still plenty left for everyone! The early bird passes sold out pretty quickly, for obvious reasons (DID YOU LOOK AT THAT LINE UP?). If you’re one of the lucky ones who are still eligible for the Under 21 passes, you can get your 3-day pass for INR 3000. A proper season ticket for all three days will set you back INR 4000. The pass for prices for Friday is for INR 2500 whereas the weekend passes will be sold for INR 3500. 

Considering the amount of talent that’s going to be up on display, this is a pretty good deal!

3. Getting to Pune! 

There are several ways of travelling to Pune. If you’re a Mumbaikar, you probably know the various cheap options you have, to get there. You could either travel by bus or get a share taxi from Dadar which would let you reach Pune in less that INR 300! That would be a huge chunk of money you would save right there.

If you’re travelling from some farther cities like Delhi or Bengaluru, we checked the flight prices on Sky Scanner for return trip flights. Considering the fact that the booking would be extremely last minute, the prices might burn a hole in your pocket, unless you have a cheaper alternative to get there.

So based on the prices we found online, it would be safe to say that it would roughly cost INR 8000 give and take for a return flight based on your location.

4. Finding a place to crash

The venue for this years Weekender is at Hinjewadi, which is a good hour long drive from the main city of Pune. So it would be wise for you to look for hotels and stay accommodations somewhere closer to Hinjewadi instead of the main city area. We’ve checked out some hotels on Airbnb and OYO Rooms which have some pretty reasonable prices as well. Given the fact that a lot of people would be wanting to stay closer to the venue, rooms are booking out very quickly. So you’ll have to hurry up!

You can also consider these list of hotels for more options!

Credits: insider.in

Considering a maximum price of INR 1500 a night, you can expect to shell out around INR 6000- INR 7500 for a 5 day stay. This price might come down if you decide to share your room too!

5. Your F&B expenditure! 

If you’re going to hole up in Hinjewadi, chances are you might not have a lot of amazing food options to explore outside the festival grounds. The festival is where you’ll do most of the eating and drinking duties. We can safely assume that you’d be spending around INR 1500 per day inside the festival. Add to that other miscellaneous expenditures you’ll incur for other meals throughout the day. So your F&B expenditure would roughly be around INR 7000 for five days.

 6. Final round-up

Taking into consideration all the above points and estimations, here’s what your final tab would look like for Bacardi NH7 Weekender Pune!

INR 8000(Return flight) + INR 4000(Festival tickets) + INR 7000(Stay) + INR 7000(F&B) = INR 26,000 (taxes if applicable) 

Make sure to keep miscellaneous costs in mind that you will incur throughout the course of the 3 day festival!

Have a fantastic Bacardi NH7 Weekender Pune folks!