Vaishal Shah. the Founder of the much awaited festival in Goa, TIMEOUT72 spoke to us about the upcoming festival, challenges he faced while conceptualising, about the cashless concept and much more.
There is so much excitement building up for the much awaited music festival in Goa, what are your expectations from this festival?
To give the fans a unique bespoke experience and not be pegged as another festival added in the rat race. Happy vibes!
What was the biggest challenge you faced while putting the concept and plan together for this festival?
I guess our strength lies in our shortcoming. We are a new festival with no prior background in the live event IP space. No one took us seriously initially but we put in 365 days of hard work, brought in the best teams as department heads and today we are sitting 10 days away from show day with all permissions in hand. We never stopped believing in ourselves. The Government Of Goa has been very supportive and I have great partners in Argha Chatterjee and Ayush Mehta who have supported me in this journey.
On what basis did you choose the line up for this festival?
We didn’t want something that run of the mill. We wanted headliners who haven’t been to India before and we didn’t want to saturate our line-up with too much of one genre. While EDM is booming we also feel pop and hip hop have a huge market in India. What happens to those fans who don’t necessarily follow EDM? That’s a question we asked ourselves before booking the artists. The golden rule for any festival in its inaugural year is to set a benchmark by fine tuning the core soul of a festival –its line-up, the rest only follows.
What is that one thing you wish you could have done while curating this festival?
Maybe book Eminem or Rihanna! We have already invested a lot, this being the first year and have cut no corners because we want to deliver an experience.
Tell us 3 top reasons why you think people must attend this festival.
The first and foremost reason is because the festival caters to diverse genres and we are not limiting ourselves to just EDM or indie or pop. Next year we may have rock too! There’s something in store for everybody including activities beyond the music. Secondly the festival will be a perfect tipping point as you bid goodbye to 2017 in a land as magical as Goa. The last being our objective is not to showcase the festival footfall as the largest in India where you and your buddies don’t have room to breathe, we want you to have a good time listening to your favourite artists!
What would you want to be your biggest achievement through this festival?
The fans go back with a smile on their face like they have accomplished something. We believe everything starts and ends with good client servicing and in this case our end consumer is the fan. Also that we pulled off a debut year with no hiccups and banging line-up and an event of high production value.
The festival is going to be completely cashless. What made you take that call? Did you see a need for it? When a country like ours is so technologically advanced, it’s important it reflects in all areas of business. Cashless payment is the future and is required to heighten consumer experiences, increase bottom lines and efficiencies to a great extent. With this new implementation, transactions will be incredibly fast, significantly reducing queues and enabling guests to spend more time enjoying the melodic festivities and not worrying about their valuables being misplaced. Our guests are our number one priority and we will ensure all measures adopted only benefit our guests, making the experience worthwhile
Describe the festival in 2 words
Epic Experiences!
Is there something you would like to tell the people who might be interested to attend?
Consider TIMEOUT72 as family, once you embrace us we won’t disappoint you! We promise to be great hosts!
