Panelists of the first session at The Exchange.
UK Trade and Investment Submerge Nikhil Chinapa Devraj Sanyal
The inaugural session at The Exchange covered the topic ‘Opportunities in India and de-mystifying the territory: An introduction to the business’. It began with a keynote by Nikhil Chinapa, festival curator and Director, Submerge.
Moderated by Chinapa, the panellists included Devraj Sanyal (MD, Universal Music Group), Manan Singhi (Head - Music Partnership, YouTube South Asia), Karan Grover (Director – Entertainment, MixRadio IMENA - India, Middle East & North Africa), Andrew Mackay (Composer, Abbey Road Studios), Ashish Hemrajani (MD & CEO, Book My Show).
Panelists kick-started the session by first discussing prominent statistics describing the population of India - the population that uses credit cards, net-banking, e-retail, mobile data/3G, etc. After ‘demystifying’ the territory and its demographics, they discussed how they could focus on their TG, by using YouTube views and BookMyShow sales as examples. They concluded that these large numbers just show the vast potential and opportunities available in India in terms of the music and live industry.
The second session was about artists discussing ‘Artists: Homegrown talent who’ve made it and UK based artists who have toured India’. This star studded panel comprised artists Dirty Vegas, John 00 Fleming, Nerm, Ankur Tewari, Pearl (Co-founder – Submerge), Gaurav Vaz (Bass Guitarist & Manager - Raghu Dixit Project) and The Emerald Armada.
The UK-based artists explained why they keep coming back to India, especially Fleming who comes once or even twice a year. Tewari and Vaz explained that their bands may not go to the UK so often, but when they do, the audience there loves it because of the ‘desi flavour’. They also mentioned how the streamlining of the VISA processes for UK will help the acts big time.
Pearl read out a long list of all the UK-based artists which Submerge has brought down - Above & Beyond, Mat Zo, Mark Knight, John Fleming, Gareth Emery and many others. Pearl said: “I’m proud of this list and the best part is that this isn’t even the complete one, we just compiled it this morning. This also shows the great relationship UK and India have when it comes to music.”
Read on to see what Devraj Sanyal, Nikhil Chinapa and various artists had to say during the first two sessions.