After a super successful Phase One launch of the Bollyboom Diljit Dosanjh India Tour in 2019 across Pune and Bengaluru, ‘Bollyboom’, the premium Bollywood Music Property of Percept Live, is all geared up to take on the capital city of Delhi and Mumbai with the chart topping artist and popular film actor Diljit Dosanjh in 2020. The much awaited pan India Bollyboom tour with the popular Punjabi heartthrob will visit Delhi on 2^nd February and Mumbai on 22^nd February, 2020.

The upcoming Bollyboom Diljit Dosanjh India Multi-City Tour will offer his fans an incredible opportunity to witness his electrifying and soulful performance live and up close.

Verus Ferreira met up with Manuj Agarwal, CEO, Percept Live to know more about Diljit’s upcoming Mumbai and Delhi editions of the Bollyboom Tour and plans for the future.

Can you please tell us the concept behind Bollyboom?

Bollywood Music is intrinsic to every Indian. Every Discotheque, Lounge, Club, Wedding, Birthday Celebration prominently has Bollywood music being played in its original & remix format and Bollywood music also reaches a huge audience around the globe. But the scale of Bollywood live events remained the same for many decades and confined to packaged TV shows and small auditorium shows. The popularity of Bollywood music talent is unquestionable, but the live concerts never came close to any of international artists. The reason being scale and packaging, not Talent. And that gave us the idea to create ‘Bollyboom’.

Bollyboom was launched in 2013 after witnessing the stupendous success of our EDM Fest Sunburn and its growing cult status globally. Bollywood music has been an intrinsic part of every Indian and by combining this with state-of-the-art production, SFX, and the best of Bollywood music Talent we knew we could offer a brand new BDM twist and create a unique Live Entertainment experience for the massive numbers of Bollywood music fans all across India and overseas.

Bollywood music infused with the beats of Electronica is a phenomenon that's only growing and getting more popular since its inception 7 years ago. The EDM genre, with its revolutionary cutting edge digital sounds and melody has grown massively in popularity and become the prime music choice of the youth today. And Indians have always been hooked to the melodies of Bollywood music. Combining the two in our IP 'Bollyboom', along with a larger than life on ground experience is a win-win combination and the proof of that is witnessed in the phenomenal growth of Bollyboom since its inception.

What challenges did you face while incepting Bollyboom?

We already had a ton of experience creating Sunburn – Asia’s largest Dance Music Festival, and the learning curve from that not only gave us the knowledge, capability and network to launch Bollyboom, but also the stamp of credibility with our fans. Percept Live has been instrumental in blazing trends in the music and entertainment industry since decades and fans knew that any Live Event IP from the Percept stable offered a unique, state-of-the-art, guaranteed VFM experience.

Our learning was that the youth enjoy and dance enthusiastically to Bollywood music in clubs and private functions. But large format concerts were yet not considered cool, fashionable and trendy as Bollywood cuts across all demographics and economic segments. Hence large format shows were witnessing a diverse mix of crowds of various age group and socio-economic strata, therein making it difficult to position Bollywood music events as an aspirational ‘go-to’ show. We therefore had to think out of the box, re-invent and conceptualize an innovative format inclusive of Artists, Design, Technicals, SFX and Venue keeping in mind that Bollyboom would only target the youth and focus on a fluid standing / dancing live crowd. Hence we chose the most popular Punjabi Bollywood / Pop Artists like Guru Randhwa, Diljit Dosanjh, Honey Singh, Badshah, Amyway and many more who are immensely popular amongst the youth. The production would be at par with international standards with top of the line Technicals, AVs, SFX, Pyrotechnics and more.

Having the ‘first mover’ advantage with Bollyboom certainly gave us an edge compared to many other ‘me-too’ Bollywood live event shows that popped up after Bollyboom’s launch in 2013. Additionally, we launched Club formats which ensured a national reach and also gave us an ability to introduce and promote young upcoming Bollywood DJ talent pan India. A pioneering initiative saw us take over popular traditional Indian festivals under the Bollyboom banner and create a brand new revived experience for the youngsters who were already used to celebrating festivals such as Holi, Valentines Day, Baisakhi, Friendship Day, Christmas and New Years Eve with popular Bollywood music. ‘Bollyboom’ is the ONLY all India and even International brand in this space.

Moreover, we have also produced and launched successful International Bollyboom shows across Kuala Lumpur, Dubai, South Africa, Singapore and more.

What can fans expect from the second edition tour of Diljit Dosanjh Bollyboom India Tour 2020?

Our primary Bollyboom tour edition with Diljit Dosanjh across Pune and Bengaluru received an overwhelming response and awesome feedback from our fans which was extremely encouraging. Taking the second edition into the prime entertainment mega cities of Mumbai and Delhi will see us scaling up on all fronts, inclusive of SFX, visuals, technicals, melodies, live banter with the audience and the overall fun entertainment quotient. Diljit Dosanjh is a remarkable and versatile artist who has wowed audiences both globally and at the initial Bollyboom editions, and our aim is to scale up the 2020 Bollyboom shows to present his amazing range of talent and versatility. After the success of his acclaimed dynamic roles in the Bollywood movies Udta Punjab and the recent comedy caper Good Newwz, his popularity has soared phenomenally and the second Bollyboom edition will see many more fans turning out to groove with this multi-talented artist. We are all prepped to setting bigger milestones and memories with him at the upcoming Delhi and Mumbai Bollyboom editions.

What are your future plans for other music events?

Over the past decade the Live Music Festival domain has grown massively and is today the one-stop music destination of millennials. India is one of the world’s largest music markets and holds great potential in the Live Music domain. With 1.4 billion music lovers, a large youth population and promising economic growth, India offers a promising destination for the Live Events space. Social Media and Live Streaming has further amplified audience awareness, growth and reach in this domain. Our core audience, the youth, have a high disposable income, are rearing to experience the very best that life has to offer, are keen to step out of their homes and enjoy the dynamic world of live entertainment. The Live Event industry in turn offers this TGa massive, fun, open, collaborative, engaging platform for them to connect, let loose and just be themselves. Music is a great unifier and music events like Bollyboom and Sunburn encourage this ‘healthy social’ experience.

Going ahead I foresee Bollyboom growing massively to tap many more markets across India as also overseas. We need to be atop our R&D, connect proactively with our audiences, see what’s trending, and reinvent our offerings across all parameters basis what’s popular. As long as we stay focused on every element of the customer experience inclusive of content, technicals, visuals, SFX, F&B, safety, security and value-add can we stay ahead of the curve and grow Bollyboom into a cult organic IP that stretches beyond our borders to entertain overseas audiences craving for a slice of India via Bollywood and everything that comes with it.

We are already working with top talent and in future we will add many more prestigious names to this roster. We will roll our many more Arena, Club Night and Pop Up formats, as also incorporate many more diverse Indian festivals under the Bollyboom banner across a wider geographical territory. Plans are also afoot to create a curated Bollyboom show which will travel globally like ‘Sensation’. Besides that our calendar will expand to have at least 200 events pan India and overseas annually.

Interviewed by Verus Ferreira