Nikhil Chinapa chats with The Sherp about his brand new music festival in Goa this December.
If you’re an ardent fan of all things EDM and live in India, things just got a whole lot better for you. India’s favorite dance music producer Nikhil Chinapa along with LIVE Viacom18 and an international festival partner (whose name has been withheld for the time being) are all set to host a brand new 5 day EDM festival in North Goa, this December. The festival (whose name has been withheld for valid reason,) will be held over that last week of December from the 26th to the 30th and will be, “for those who are interested in a fantastic festival experience combined with fantastic music,” according to Chinapa himself.
When asked on what this festival will be doing differently, Chinapa further said (and quite earnestly), “I don’t aim at being any different. I don’t look at anything other people are doing, when I first built Sunburn I hadn’t seen any music festival and I had built it from what was is my head and my heart. We all saw how that turned out, that’s exactly what I’m planning to do here as well. So I’m not aiming to position it differently from what anybody else is doing, or positioning it differently from what Tomorrowland or Global Gathering are going to do, I am gonna do what I think is the best thing to do create an experience for fans of dance music in India. This is always the dream that we would be able to share the music we love with our friends in India. That’s Pearl and I always wanted to do and that’s exactly what we’re going to stick to.”
Since the news of the festival has just been announced, we can’t expect to know what the line-up is but can be absolutely sure that it will be fantastic.
Nikhil emphasised, “I can’t talk about the line up right now but what I can tell you is that the festival will be primarily dance music in year one, but we have very clear plans to expand it this to 17 stages with only 50 per cent of the stages being dance music, with the other 50 being alternative forms of music. I also plan on introducing festival camping as well.”
SCORE!
Mr Jaideep Singh, Sr. Vice President and Business Head – INS, Viacom18 contributed by saying,
“At LIVE our endeavour is to provide premium entertaining experiences. At present, EDM gas been gaining popularity and turned into the new favourite for today’s young millenials. Keeping this in mind, we have conceptualized this event to create a larger than-life experience for music lovers. With a constellation of world – class talent performing throughout, the festival is sure to redefine theEDM genre in the country.”
However, with so many EDM festivals happening or waiting to happen another primary concern of most festival goers is the experience of it all and what they can expect apart from just the music. Can this festival hope to achieve that? Nikhil is pretty positive that it can.
“We’re working with an international festival partner whose name we also withheld right now. They’ve created some created some fantastic experience globally, and they are hoping to bring some of those experiences to our festival in Goa.” The associated international festival company has executed large format events in destinations such as Los Angeles, Las Vegas, New York, Chicago, Dallas, Puerto Rico and London and is regarded as one of the world’s finest dance music companies with the forte of delivering an electrifying carnival atmosphere.
With years of experience and in-depth understanding of the industry, Chinapa is adamant to let people know that this festival will be about, above all – balance, “The philosophy is balance, there’s going to be something there for everyone. We’re going try and encourage people who listen to one form of music to go and check out another form as well, and then see if they like it or not, We can’t force people to listen to a certain type of music, that’s of course ridiculous. But the festival it will have some quality DJ’s positioned over flashy names,” he promises.
“The festival will also show preference to top-notch DJs over commercial names as the festival targets devoted music lovers whose needs aren’t being met in the current Indian music festival landscape.”
FYI, Nikhil’s role in this festival is will be of a Festival Director and in his individual capacity and not as part of Submerge.
Well, The Sherp couldn’t agree more and is whole-heartedly behind this philosophy. It’s time we see some quality over quantity and this festival may just achieve that to that.