How to start an indie festival

Bloomverse festival by SkillBox saw its first edition in April this year at Guwahati

In May, cooped-up Mumbaikars, who were ready to unleash their inner partygoer, attended the Gin Explorers Club, Mumbai's first edition of a festival centered solely around gin. It was only in July that Bengaluru saw the first edition of LiveBox, a day-long indoor music festival organised by SkillBox, an art community and ticketing platform. QueerMade Weekend, which focused on Queer businesses, also saw its first edition in Delhi at DLF Promenade last month. What made all these festivals unique was that, though, they had music, they had an additional thrust, which could be the reason they stood out. At a time when a music festival is as common as organic coffee shops, how does one make sure their property gets noticed?

The logistical parts of the festival such as production, booking the right kind of artists, venue, vendors and ensuring the audience gets the right kind of experience, requires a lot of planning, execution and strategy, believes Anmol Kukreja, founder of SkillBox. "The biggest problem of people organising festivals is that they don't have proper know-how about event management," says Shuchir Suri, founder of Gin Explorers Club. "Just because you like a certain kind of music, doesn't mean you can start a festival. Running a festival is all about operations, event management, production, great finance management and raising sponsorship." It's also about getting a headstart. Suri, who organises the Earthen Festival in Rajasthan, says that he begins prep at least a year in advance. Kukreja, who has launched two festivals this year, says he starts curating at least six months in advance. He admits that as a "ticketing partner we look at a data driven approach of programming artistes where their most loyal fans are."

Anmol Kukreja, Sakshi Juneja and Shuchir Suri

It's also about making sure that both the audience and the artistes are paid attention to. Sakshi Juneja, founder of Gaysi Family, a media platform and safe zone for queer desis organised QueerMade, in collaboration with Tinder. She believes in "involving local artistes and team members in another city as they have better sensibility of the space, can draw a crowd and be monetarily feasible." However, she admits that at their events, she usually gets her own organising team as it helps in sensitising the new place, their management and volunteers.

But curating a festival is not just about having a few artistes perform and food to go with. SkillBox has three festivals - Bloomverse which had its first edition in April in Guwahati, LiveBox and Lemonade. "We don't want our customers to have the same experience they have everywhere. We try to diversify our experiences," says Kukreja. Besides genre, many other things set the three festivals apart. Bloomverse is a spring happy festival which caters to electronic and live music, LiveBox focuses on live music and pushing live acts in India and Lemonade is a party festival in Goa focusing on reggae and electronic music. Suri recommends building the concept over time and starting with smaller festivals rather than doing large festivals hastily. The venue should be decided on the basis of the budget and the weather in the city.

However, organisers believe that a successful first edition of the festival doesn't necessarily have to yield a second edition. "Finances play an important part and usually in India, it takes two or three years for a festival to be profitable," says Kukreja. Being consistent is important, believes Juneja. "If you consistently keep doing it, you will build a community, and these days, building a safe community is the key to having loyal consumers," she concludes.

Three tips for a hatke music fest

.  Make the experience unique and have a theme
.  Think beyond music
.  Collaborate with brands that fit the theme