The rockland is far away!

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DJ David Guetta turns tables for young fans in the city

Geetika Sethi, a law student, loves American hip-hop music band, Black Eyed Peas. However, she missed out the first-ever performance of the band in the city. She had even purchased the ticket worth Rs 5000!

“I, along with my friends, was counting days before the performance. But on the D-day, my friends left for the venue a bit early and I couldn’t manage to go alone since I didn’t even know the way to the Amber Lounge. There is no proper transport system in Greater Noida. If the performance had been in the city, I wouldn’t have missed it at any cost,” says Geetika.
She is not alone. With many popular bands performing in India, the music dose is higher than ever before and it might seem that the music lovers cannot be asking for more. But back-to-back concerts at faraway venues have left many youngsters struggling to catch up with the action all around.
A die-heart music fan, businessman Varun Bansal has been missing all the performances. He had never imagined that bands like Guns N’ Roses, DJ David Guetta, Fatboy Slim, Guetta, Slayer, Korn and his most favourite Carlos Santana would perform in India. But when it actually happened, he had to give it a miss! “I love music and wanted to see all these performances. But the venues are so far off and traffic problems add to the woes. Instead of attending performances at far-off locations, I attended the LAP parties since the party venues were at least within reach,” says Varun.
It’s not just the distance, the high ticket prices that usually begin from Rs 2,500 and go up to Rs 15,000 are also out of reach of many youngsters. An engineering student from IP University, Aditya Jain’s room is full of music albums from singers like Enrique Iglesias, who recently performed at Huda Grounds. But thanks to his limited budget, he could go for only one performance. “I told my father that my college was sending us for a special tour to see science and technology museums in various cities and I needed money for that. That’s how I managed to get half of the ticket money from my father and the rest I managed from my savings,” shares Aditya, who had a gala time at Korn concert at Leisure Valley Ground, Gurgaon.
The back-to-back concerts in the city also have the organisers on their toes. Event management company, Mooz Entertainment, VP marketing, Dilip Ramachandran is running around to make sure the Guns N’ Roses (GnR) show turns out to be world class. “Since GnR, which is performing on December 12 in Gurgaon, is one of the most iconic bands in the music scene, we believe the concert will have a big turnout. For safety and security of both the band members and audience, we have detailed standard operating procedures (SoPs) for crowd control and security,” he adds.
To attract youngsters, the organisers are offering gifts, tour programs, preferred parking and separate entrance at venue. Only if they pay attention to connectivity of venues and reasonable ticket prices, many more will attend these performances, adds Varun.