Artist management
Ankith Kedar is the director of Strobe Nightlife – an agency
that manages popular Goan DJs like Navin, Ryan Nogar,
Jay Naik, Akshit Shetty, Varun Fernandes and Allimarc. Apart
from artist management, the agency does international
artist bookings and curation of the artist line-up and set-up
of music festivals. Ankith, who first started off as an event
organiser a couple of years ago, says, “I was always curious
about how much a certain international DJ charges for
a performance. I started making enquiries with different
talent management agencies across the world and in the
process, built my network. I also realised that, when dealing
with international artists, everything is routed through their
agency that carries out every task professionally. Then, I
started helping fellow event organisers with artist bookings
as. It was about time that Goa got an agency that could be
the one-stop shop for managing key tasks efficiently and
that is how Strobe Nightlife was born.” Over the past few
months, more such agencies have shaped up in Goa and
things look only better.
Promotion through Social media
Vishwanath Shelke of Jack Events, popularly known as
‘Jacky’, points out an important factor that has completely
changed the way events are promoted now. He says, “Back
in the day, we used to design event flyers in jazzy colours,
print them and distribute them to promote the event.
Also, information in text format was sent through SMS to
regular party goers and we had to rely on word of mouth
publicity. With the advent of sophisticated technology
and smartphones, things have changed drastically. Now,
more emphasis is laid on tastefully designing the artwork
of the event. This is then publicised by posting on various
social media channels and circulating on WhatsApp, which
ensures a much higher reach as compared to traditional
methods. Earlier, maybe one event was held every month.
Due to these rapid changes in the industry, the frequency of
events held in Goa, has increased considerably.”
Ta king Goan events to other pa rts of
India/world
Many Goan event organisers owe their reputation to their
special events hosted in Goa that have been extremely
successful. Some, have even gone a step ahead and
experimented with the idea of having these signature
parties in other parts of India and the world. Last year,
Jacky did a five-city tour under the name of ‘The Get
Together Goa’. Jacky says, “Owing to the strong response
that the festival received in Goa, I hosted it in Raipur, Pune,
Mumbai and Bangalore before having the final show in
Goa. The response that I got outside Goa was unexpectedly
overwhelming.” Jacky further adds, “Our local DJs are really
talented but they have not got an opportunity to show their
talent outside of Goa. The concept of ‘The Get Together
Goa’ is to promote Goan DJs by having them to perform in
other parts of India.”
Mackenzie Eudes Pereira, popularly known as Mackie,
is one of the veterans of the nightlife industry in Goa.
Known for his emceeing and deejaying skills, Mackie has
also collaborated with DJ Joel to form Bullfrog Goa – an
event management company that hosts some of the most
successful events in Goa like Bullfrog Easter and Bullfrog
Grind, to name a few. Last year, Bullfrog Goa debuted in
Dubai. Mackie, in a previous conversation with Café had
said, “Most of the people in Dubai that we are catering to,
are Goans. The first time we went there, we had to shut
the doors at 11.30pm as we could not accommodate the
overwhelming attendance. Once Bullfrog Goa makes a
mark in Dubai, plans of setting base in Manila will shape up.”
