So first things first , How was the whole idea of Vh1 Supersonic ever conceived ? How has it evolved over the years ?
Nikhil : Back in 2013 , I had an acrimonious exit from the festival that I used to work with previously and I was planning on setting up my own music festival and I had a conversation with the team at Viacom18 . The Live division of Viacom18 had just been set up and in our conversation with the head of the business at that point in time , we realised that they were also planning on doing an electronic music festival as part of their Live bouquet of events that they were planning on doing . So , we just put both our ideas together and Vh1 Supersonic was born ! And I think it was a fantastic partnership because up until that point in time , I ’ d been working with MTV for almost fifteen years , so it almost felt like I was working with family . The Viacom18 team and the entire operational system was sort of easy for me to segway into and work with . I think it was a great relationship from the getgo .
Gaurav : I joined the Viacom18 business three and a half years ago . So , by then we had already finished six editions of Vh1 Supersonic . I joined here in 2019 and I was collaborating with people already in the business , and Nikhil of course , and then we went into covid . So , 2023 became my first Vh1 Supersonic .
So then how was your experience being there physically and experiencing the whole vibe ?
Gaurav : It has been fantastic . We started planning in April and right from the planning stage I think there were a lot of new things for me to learn as well . But overall , I ’ m extremely happy with the experience from what we ’ ve put together from both the business point-of-view and the consumer point-of-view . We have grown from just an electronic music festival to a multi-genre music festival . We also kind of added a lifestyle component in 2020 when we launched SuperStreet which was our fashion and art project within Vh1 Supersonic . We always had SuperFlea , which we grew significantly this year and I think in terms of experience and response , it has been great .
Nikhil , in your own words , what do you think set this music festival apart from any other festivals across the globe , leave alone India ?
Nikhil : Well , to put it in one word , I think it is a vibe . But to expand on that a little bit , we got to look at ourselves from an Indian context . We are a community of people that loves watching Bollywood movies and we love watching Tom cruise action-flix . We love eating our pani puri and bhel puri and at the same time we love our pasta . We love our cosmopolitans , and we love our kheer and lassi . So , we ’ re a very interesting mix of people as a culture . And I think Vh1 Supersonic is one of those festivals that sort of fits all those boxes with various people from various backgrounds and interests . We are not just one dimensional not only from the music point of view but also the F & B perspective and the contentcreation perspective . We manage to attract a very wide range of interest and experience-seekers and I think we deliver for all of them , which is interesting because we keep adding on various layers . There ’ s a vision that I have always had with Vh1 Supersonic from the get-go and it was never meant to be only an electronic music festival . It was always meant to be not just multi-genre but multi-disciplinary as well . We do intend to , at some point in time , bring in spoken word , and other art forms like sculpture , painting , digital art , and short films . All of these are at the planning stage and when the time is right , then these elements will start to come in but right now the focus is largely on music , on building that community , on bringing that community together and creating a community experience . Because Vh1 Supersonic is not just about the experience , it is also about driving culture and bringing communities together . And I think that ’ s going to be our focus for the next few years and that ’ s how we ’ ll go forward .
Gaurav , being the business head at Viacom18 Live ( Integrated Network Solutions ) and considering how businesses are mostly driven by data available , what is the kind of data that goes into decision making into this music festival ?
Gaurav : There are multiple data touch points that we refer to . From an artist-curation point of view , the team over here along with Nikhil , looks at data across music platforms , social media trends , YouTube , and Google because there are so many artists doing so well across the world . But we obviously want to bring the artists who do well in India and the sound that is appreciated by Indians . Then there ’ s obviously some amount of discovery we put into the festival . So , I think that ’ s a big point in terms of data . The other thing is that we have data of our past consumers who have been attending Vh1 Supersonic . We have a very good , loyal fan base . A lot of our consumers return , again and again , every year . That data kind of tells us , along with the music , what kind of experiences and vibes we should be creating year-on-year .
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