LOLLA IN INDIA: Can it bridge the chasm of expectations between fans & organizers?

Lollapalooza is the biggest musical event in the 2023 calendar and is possibly the hugest in terms of scale in India ever. Being the first Lolla in Asia, the 30-year-old festival’s India outing is a heady mix of the biggest contemporary acts across genres of music. Featuring international artists such as Imagine Dragons, The Strokes, Diplo, Greta Van Fleet, Cigarettes After Sex, Zhu and a host of Indian and Indian-origin majors who have put the country on the world map like AP Dhillon, Prateek Kuhad, Divine, among others, Lolla promises to be a most unique concert-going experience in the post-COVID India.

Unique, we say, with caution, given the chasm that tends to lie between the festival-organising and festival-going experiences in India, and Lolla is no stranger to that. There is always a section of people who are dissatisfied with a lineup because it doesn’t fit within their expectations of what they’d like to hear. Usually, these disappointed fans are the ones who base their hopes on two flawed but major expectations: 1) the rock act has to be the biggest headliner; 2) said act has to have been around for at least 25 years to be considered (by them) a massive festival draw.

Lolla—unlike many other festivals of similar scale like Coachella and Glastonbury—has traditionally tilted towards rock for its headliners. Glastonbury was headlined by Billie Eilish, Paul McCartney and Kendrick Lamar in 2022 while Coachella had Eilish, Harry Styles and Swedish House Mafia (stepping in for Kanye West’s last-minute cancellation). Compared to its star-studded 2022 lineup featuring Metallica, Green Day, Dua Lipa, Doja Cat, J, Cole and Machine Gun Kelly, Lolla Mumbai’s 2023 artist roster can seem underwhelming for some 40+ age-group rock concertgoers.

This is an interesting demographic that has done its rounds at Razz Rhino and Rang Bhavan, jostled for free passes at NSCI or Brabourne stadium in Mumbai when major artists like Michael Jackson or Bon Jovi came, and has over the years travelled and developed enough spending power to purchase music festival tickets. In the 30 years that has lapsed since their earliest concert experiences to becoming globe-trotters, so much as changed in the live music space in India.

Despite that, some of our mindsets remain the same: that a multi-genre music festival is good if rock is its biggest headliner. This stems from a certain arrogance that only rock music fans can stake claim to the idea of an English music festival in India. These would be the same people who would’ve complained if Beyonce and Post Malone were part of the lineup. Miley Cyrus straddles both rock and pop, so perhaps she would’ve been an exception.

But The Strokes have become festival-circuit darlings who (in their 24 years) have risen to being a staple across mega concert events. They’re not very familiar to the larger Indian audience, and even among rock aficionados. Internationally, these Grammy winners have co-headlined many a major festival in the recent past. Imagine Dragons are a rock outfit that actually bring in some of the youngest crowds (many of whom have been introduced to contemporary rock through this band).

From the organisers’ perspective, these are two huge names in the lineup. Bookmyshow, which is promoting and co-producing the Indian edition of Lollapalooza certainly knows a thing or two about scale. In 2019, BMS was responsible for bringing to India a behemoth that challenges the idea of scale for any organiser: U2.

From the concert-goers’ perspective, they are great co-headliners but not big enough to hold their own. This is the chasm that repeats itself year after year when a major music festival is announced, revealing the divide between conditioned mindsets and having a finger on the pulse. Why the expectation is flawed has much to do with the fact that it doesn’t take into account that the audiences’ tastes are changing (as is their age group) and becoming less insular, and with it the need to have an enhanced overall concert-going experience.

Admittedly, Lolla’s lineup could’ve done with a little more classic rock/metal-ness and surely the organisers quietly feel the same. It’s another matter that the festival’s most gaping hole is in the pop department this year and Imagine Dragons (straddling both popular appeal and rock sounds)or CAG aren’t enough.

Following the tradition of some major festivals around the world and the NH7 Weekender closer home, LollaMumbai too announced early bird tickets before revealing any of the major headliners. Today the two-day pass is priced at approximately ₹12,000, which is under $150 for two days. The reason to convert this into dollars is to put in perspective how inexpensive the tickets are in comparison to the international editions of these festivals.

For $75 per day after a lineup is announced, the cost justifies the nature of artists onboard in Mumbai this year, especially since Lolla Chicago is pricing their August 2023 one-day tickets at $125 per day without any lineup in sight. But Lolla Chicago can afford to do that after all these years since fans have rightfully placed their trust in expecting a lineup that boasts of many big-hitters.

Given that the audience today is better travelled and more aware, even if this is Lolla’s first edition in India, a good chunk of its audience would base its expectations on historic evidence from the other editions. Then again, is the Indian concertgoer of today willing to pay $120 per day if the acts were “bigger”, “more classic”, less teenybopper-ish?

The problem also comes from our freeloading, subsidized mindsets where we are quick to complain about toilets and long-lines at festivals but aren’t willing to acknowledge, or worse, pay for them. We want to pay Shiv Sagar prices for a Taj experience and then complain if anything falls short. We also want to be snooty and disregard the fact that there may actually belovers of Soundgarden who might also dig Imagine Dragons today. Oh, the travesty!

This is why Lollapalooza Mumbai is poised to change the way we think of multi-genre music festivals. So far, the average English music listener’s benchmark for a festival has been the NH7 Weekender, a wonderfully organised but incredibly tiny experience in terms of scale in comparison. Global Citizen’s outing was a one-off edition that also found a ridiculous amount of Bollywood stars in a lineup that featured Coldplay. We have had major artists perform concerts here, but this is a first for a major entertainment intellectual property pitching its tent that too not at the outskirts.

In a post-COVID world, Lolla is the biggest musical gathering in Mumbai, that too at the heart of the city: the Mahalaxmi Racecourse. While the venue is a parking nightmare in general and a disaster with the current construction works, Lolla has allocated parking at neighbouring areas and is set to provide bus and train shuttles. Working with Skrap, the festival promises to be an environment-conscious one with a goal to have zero garbage lying around.

Today’s average concert-ticket buyer is a younger, more socially-conscious person (a “woke” one for the cynics) for whom the overall experience along with some big-ticket headliners is enough reason to be there at the festival. This buyer doesn’t need us 40-year-olds defining what construes as “big”.

Can Lolla’s arrival in India finally fill that chasm? Perhaps not in its first edition, but it is definitely making an audacious effort to bring in a whole spectrum of audiences. Only time will tell if it becomes a watershed moment for live entertainment of scale in India or remains another highly-priced one-off weekend that caused a traffic jam.

Lollapalooza Mumbai is a two-day music festival that will be held at Mahalaxmi Racecourse on January 28 and 29.

PS: The writer is over 40 and isn’t ageist.

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