MUMBAI: The well planned city of Lavasa in Maharashtra, is going to host its first ever music festival 'The Lost Party'. The three day music festival has partnered with Saavn, making it the music streaming service’s first live IP partnership. The festival, which is to be held from 6 to 8 March has been organised by a group of avid music festival attendees and ‘non-corporate janta’, said one of the core team festival organisers Pratik Agarwal.

Festival's inception

We are a bunch of non-corporate general janta, who regularly go to music festivals in India and abroad, and we thought why not have our own festival. A music festival is not just a festival, it is a multi-stage music experience. Music is an umbrella at a fest, and there are so many other activities a festival goer can participate in and enjoy. We want to create a Burning Man sort of an experience here in Asia.

The Lost Party Experience

To make The Lost Party outstanding in its own right, the organising team has come up with interesting ideas. With ‘Drunches’, the festival-goer will have access to music, food and drinks even before the festival starts. While artistes are performing on the two stages, the other artistes will go around the venue with their instrument and just start playing and interacting with the audience, via ‘Busking’. There is another interesting concept that we have come up with, in the form of ‘Rent A Pool.’ We are giving festival-goers inflatable pools, so that they can have a pool party at the festival. The festival is for two nights and three days, and the last day is basically a chill out day. This comes from the experience of going mad just recovering from a fest.

On the artist line-up

The Lost Party boasts an impressive, interesting and varied artiste line-up. We have Australian swing house duo Yolanda Be Cool as headliners, Pig&Dan, Nucleya, Prem Joshua, Twilight Players, Martin Roth, Trilok Gurtu, Dualist Inquiry, Avial, Reggae Rajahs, Kohra, Neha Bhasin, Vasuda Sharma and more. Amongst them, I am quite excited about The Turbans and Rico Loop Live. We even managed to get Trilok Gurtu, who seldom performs at music festivals. He is a true-hearted gypsy. Everyone has a gypsy inside of them, and we want to bring it out through The Lost Party and having Trilok Gurtu shows how much we mean it.

We were also trying to get the English folk-rock singer-songwriter Michael David Rosenberg, well known under his stage name Passenger. However, his manager was reluctant about him coming here and performing. We wanted Passenger to come here so bad that we even started an online campaign asking people to tweet about why they want Passenger to come to India, tagging The Lost Party and Passenger and using the hashtag, #LetHerGo.

On the design

When people are asked about the design of a music festival, they first think about the visual appeal. But, design is not just that. For example, if a festival-goer throws trash in the bin, he/she gets a free WiFi code from a telecom service that is at the festival. This is called design branding. This is how we want to push the exhibitors to be innovative with their installations.

Marketing and reach

We have started promotion of the fest through Tinder, which is the matchmaking mobile application that uses geo-location technology, through which users have the option to match with anyone within that distance. When you swipe right, which means you are interested in the person, and that person is affiliated with The Lost Party and he reciprocates, you win a free pass.

The Lost Party is also affiliated with networks like Google, Bookmyshow, Zomato and Saavn as a part of our social marketing. Moreover, we have also roped in Scoop Whoop, Miss Malini, Festival Sherpa and others. As a part of their digital outreach, we have started campaigning The Lost Party on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Google Plus and Pinterest.

Through traditional marketing, The Lost Party has got ad space, talk shows, interviews and music hours on radio. On print, along with newspapers, magazines and advertisements, we have also made a treaty with Times of India Lavasa for promotion of the festival. We also conducted a pre-event recently, where experimental music act B.L.O.T. performed. We also have few more on-ground activations and tie-ups, along with hoardings.

The target audience that we are aiming at are working individuals in the age range of 25-40 with the young in the age range of 18-25.

Epilogue

The Lost Party is the culmination of art expressed via various mediums. It is a call to the wanderer in you to come and explore the world of creativity. It is an invitation to your soul to get in touch with the frequencies that resonate throughout this universe. It is an experience that you will be raving about for months. Organised from 6-8 March, it serves as the perfect getaway for people to enjoy their Holi weekend at the festival.