Originated from the idea of a Electronic Dance Music (EDM) festival held in Goa, Sunburn was launched in 2007 and became a place of synergy of music, entertainment, sports, food, shopping and lifestyle. “When Sunburn started in 2007, electronic dance music was still an unexplored genre in India and Asia. Hence, we decided to bring EDM into mainstream. The philosophy that Sunburn has always followed is that music brings people together to celebrate, regardless of where they live or what language they speak and we want to connect people. Sunburn started as a small musical festival on the beach in Goa. But, now we are proud to say that Sunburn is the number one destination for Electronic Dance Music in Asia and ranked the 4th Best festival in the world (by inthemix.au),” informed Shailendra Singh, joint MD, Percept and inceptor of Sunburn.
The first event was held in alliance with Smirnoff and the Ministry of Tourism, Goa, near Candolim Beach, Goa and hosted by well known VJ Nikhil Chinappa. Sunburn has become the favourite dance music property in Asia which made its debut city edition in Mumbai in 2012 and thereafter took the same format to Noida and Colombo in October 2012.
In the year 2013, Sunburn season 7 touched 18 million global fans participating in the event. Sunburn has expanded itself to set a new bar for ‘arena’ format gigs with renowned international DJs, the most recent being Swedish House Mafia’s One Last Tour and Avicii’s debut in India marking the rise of a unique concept such as Sunburn Arena.
“Sunburn is not only in the business of making people happy, they have also extended the opportunity for consumers to take home a bigger, better brand experience. Leveraging their phenomenal audience connect further, Sunburn has taken the reigns and partnered with like-minded brands such as Hero Motocorp, Woodland and Tuborg that speak the same language, to the aspirational youth pan India and abroad. Through touch points such as a Dutch international artist’s maiden TVC for Hero Motocorp, Woodland’s ‘Leave no trace’ campaign, Tuborg’s co-branded packaging (with Sunburn Goa 2013 on all units sold from October 2013 to December 2013) in Russia, Sunburn gives its fans a larger than life experience,” he added.
The response for the festival has been sky rocketing since its inception in 2007. Sunburn started with a humble hosting of 10,000 people and has now expanded to over 150,000 footfalls. Sunburn has grown over the past seven years at a fast pace to become Asia’s premier electronic dance music brand. With a variety of experiences to choose from, Sunburn caters to a wide Indian and international audience and highlights India as a music festival destination to the world.
Sunburn raised the bar in delivering the best global EDM experience there is to offer and re-shaped the entire music scene in India. Over the past twelve months, Sunburn has brought down five of the top 10 DJ’s to India, including – David Guetta, Afrojack, Swedish House Mafia, Armin Van Burren, Paul Van Dyke, Fedde Le Grand and Tiësto.
Elaborating on the challenges in promoting dance/music festivals to increase tourism in the industry, “EDM, part of the larger live entertainment industry is gradually receiving support from sponsors/ business partners. IPs that are created post such strategic partnerships offer a brand not just great business growth but also make way for consumer pull and tourism in the state. The EDM scene in India unlike its other entertainment counterparts such as Bollywood and cricket, is on an upwardly growth path and people are gradually warming up to it. The primary challenge that Sunburn has faced in growing the market is to acquaint the audiences with EDM not only in key markets but also in smaller towns/cities. While this challenge is on its way to become an advantage with the activities that Sunburn is executing across the length and breadth of the country. Now that we have some demand, considering the dynamics of our country, we still tackle challenges faced from authorities while they are absolutely just in demanding certain protocol to ensure our events are safe,” he opined.
(As told to Kahini Chakraborty)
