New Trails: Innovations In Touring

Creating touring circuits and promoting concerts can pose several challenges for both promoter and artist - with limited venues, vast distances between cities, a dearth of sponsors and low budgets to facilitate larger scale tours. Artist managers and collectives can explore creating networks, making effective pitches to sponsors, pooling resources and sharing risks to make a tour happen - but is this sustainable in the long run? This session explores innovations of promoters who are changing the landscape of touring independent artists in India.

Date: 25th Nov / Time: 16:00 / Venue: Surya, The Park Chennai / Event Type: Music, Film, Culture Conference

Speakers

  • Karan Mehta

    Karan Mehta Bluetree / India

    Former guitarist for Delhi metal band Colossal Figures, Karan mehta started to promote indie music with weekly shows featuring some of the best upcoming talent in the city with his venture Up Your Arts. With hosting bands such Karnivool (Australia), Tides From Nebula (Poland), I am waiting for you last summer (Russia) he decided to merge hands with BlueTree to continue the same on a much bigger scale while working with artists such as The Aristocrats , Guthrie Govan , Twelve Foot Ninja amongst others in the indie music circuit. BlueTree is a group of people trying to kick things up in terms of gigs/ events / musical expansion . From managing some of the best upcoming indie talent to bringing down the best international artists , we're only gearing up to unleash the creativity and vibrant expression to the masses.

  • Yann Ryk

    Yann Ryk FRACAMA / France

    Yann Ryk is “charge de mission territoire” for the Fraca-Ma. His mission consists to animate the Fraca-Ma’s network, that is to say connect the federated organisations together on the one hand, and to connect the Fraca-Ma’s network to the local politic organisations. Supported by Region Centre Val-de-Loire and Ministry of Culture, the Fraca-Ma is a federation of almost 40 non profit organisations of popular music (concert halls, labels, radios, schools, producers, etc.). Its purpose is to help and contribute to develop popular music in the region Centre Val-de-Loire, by working on : - structuration of the popular music’s sector - information - cooperation between operators - transmission of knowledge - spotting new talents

  • Nikhil Udupa

    Nikhil Udupa 4/4 Entertainment / India

    Nikhil Udupa is a metalhead who happens to be in the entertainment business. A Marine Engineer by education and entertainment industry professional by passion. He has over 9 years of experience in building brands, creating content, developing experience based IP's and pushing the independent music scene . With stints at OML and MTV he now runs his own company 4/4 Entertainment which works to create memorable subculture experiences for brands and networks. He also runs the acclaimed non profit crowdsourced music movement - Control ALT Delete with his partner Himanshu Vaswani. 4/4 Entertainment is a subculture think tank offering consultancy and turnkey execution solutions in the fields of music, art, dance, urban street culture, comedy and more.

  • Varun Desai

    Varun Desai Littlei / India

    Varun Desai from Kolkata is a Purdue University graduate in computer engineering. His passion for music led him to start DJ-ing and producing events, which subsequently turned into his current profession as the director of an event management company. Since 2002, he has been touring the world, both as a cultural representative and as a music producer and DJ. His company Littlei, founded in 2007, has organised over 400 events and concerts. Varun is also a music producer (aka. Yidam/5volts), teacher, graphic designer, video artist (aka. varundo), creative coder and synthesizer builder. Littlei's primary focus is producing & promoting music, the performing arts and innovative design while building a national creative commune that includes musicians, artists, designers, writers, actors, dancers, photographers, producers and new age visionaries. Littlei’s services range from artist and performer bookings to a comprehensive event management service.