MUMBAI: Artist Aloud’s latest Music Festival held on World Music Day was a hit. Pioneered by Hungama Digital Media Entertainment Private Ltd, the show witnessed performances by artists like Mumbai’s Finest, Thaikkudam Bridge, Best Kept Secret, Euphoria, The Local Train etc. They performed at multiple venues across the country on 21 June 2018.  

Artist Aloud VP Soumini Sridhara Paul said, “There were venues that did exceptionally well and one of them was Worli, then was ‘The Local Train’ in Gurgaon were selling tickets well in advance compared to most of the other venues. They did bring good turnouts there. Even the Avial, another Malayalam band that performed at Bengaluru did extremely well.”

On this, she added, “The idea was to focus on artists, who actually bring in the footfall and at the same time showcase what World Music Day stands for. Overall, it was a great turn out.”

While finding venues have always been an issue, Soumini Sridhara Paul adds on what’s the root cause, “Most of the venues don’t understand the investments and the business when it comes to entertainment in the F&B model and ironically we all want it because they know that’s going to be their game changer. The challenge was to get sponsors on board. We deal with the venues saying, “You define the budget and we will do our best to give you good talent. We try to be the mediator where the consumer has a good time, also the artist grows, and it’s an ecosystem that we are building. We definitely believe HRC understands the model and they definitely are not just an F&B outlet, they are serious about entertainment.”

But, Artist Aloud feels fortunate to collaborate with Hard Rock Cafe as their venue partner for this particular fest.

On this Soumini says, “We have been working with them, since a long time and have worked on various formats also, for example, their own events.”

She further reveals the future plans of Artist Aloud saying, “People who consume independent music are not necessarily searching for it, in fact, it’s getting discovered and this discovery is leading to consumption and appreciation. We will continue to offer consumers the best of independent music even in the future. We expect independent music to move from the discovery phase to search phase very soon. It’s only a matter of time.”