Interview with
SONYA MAZUMDAR:
INDIE EARTH XCHANGE 2017
Congratulations on putting together the 6th edition of the indiEarth XChange this year. Tell us your biggest take away from this edition?
The biggest take away from this year’ s edition is that artists are involved in their own development more than ever before, they understand the value of XChange and its impact on the industry in the coming years. This year’ s XChange was focused on next generation artists and industry, education and skills development. The overwhelming response from artists and learners is a vindication of our efforts to keep XChange going against all odds.
As the Founder of this event, and this being the 6th year, what according to you lacks in an event like this?
I would love to see more proactive participation by industry‘ Elders’, who would chip in their time, money and experience to grow this platform to build infrastructure which will be good for everyone. Apart from a few exceptions, current industry members with their many years of experience still seem hesitant to share their knowledge to pave the path for a new working model that will be built and used by next generation industry. I would love to see sponsors step out of their boxes of stereotyped ROI perceptions and look at developing their brand identities from more creative perspectives.
An event such as XChange is an event which every link in the industry chain should be a part of- from artist to audience and everyone in between: venues, media, sponsors, artist management, etc.- everyone is a stakeholder and we need to encourage the ' pay for the arts ' mentality, it ' s not sustainable to expect one organizer to be able to fund everything and everyone involved in an endeavour of this magnitude.
What were the challenges you faced while putting together the event?
Funding is the only huge challenge for putting up an event such as this. Other than that, an event such as this should ideally be in a venue that is built for musical performances and film screenings and conducive to the arts, without swallowing up a major part of the budget.
Whats your basic formulae / criteria while picking the artists who perform at the XChange?
Diversity first- both genre and cultural. I programme acts that the city would love to watch as well as acts that
The Score Magazine
22 highonscore. com