Storm Festival is one of the biggest music festival organised in Coorg till now. It has created quite a pleasant strom with music enthusiasts at the same time ruffled some local feathers, who are a bit apprehensive, if not ill-informed about the festival. We are grateful to the organizers for answering some of our queries.
CC: How and when did the idea come up ?
Liquid Space: Storm Festival is a brain child of Liquidspace Entertainment, a company incepted in 2009 by 2 brothers, Nellamakkada Lavin Uthappa and Sachin Bopanna. A dream of a couple of years back is being brought to reality in the form of the Storm Festival with the support of artist managers Submerge and The Syndicate. Storm aspires to showcase the natural beauty of Coorg, the Scotland of India and encourage responsible tourism through its initiative against the usage of plastic and drugs.
CC: Can you tell us a bit more about the festival ?
Liquid Space: The festival will have DJs from across the globe to keep your feet tapping and top bands from India to fill with different flavours of music while one gets to enjoy the serene beauty of nature along with adventure and camping experience to get you off the daily grind and mundane.
CC: How many artists will be performing at the festival ?
Liquid Space: Storm in association with Karnataka Tourism, MTV Roots, Timescity.com and Radio One, will have over 37 artists from across the globe performing on two different stages. The Festival will have bands and DJs like Indian Ocean, Lesle Lewis, The Raghu Dixit Project, Richard Durand, Thomas Gold, Pearl, Nikhil Chinapa and others. We have 16 bands and about 23 DJ’s including 5 international acts.
CC: This is the first time such a huge music festival is being organised in Coorg. With local boys Nikhil and Vachan playing, it seems more interesting. How has the response been till now?
Liquid Space: We started promoting the festival actively since May 2011. The response has been overwhelming. Nikhil Chinapa is hosting the Festival and we also have DJ’s from Coorg like Kalypso and Vilas besides Vachan Chinnappa.
CC: How many people are expected to participate?
Liquid Space: We have space for about 800 people to stay in tents and we are expecting around 1500 people to attend the festival everyday.
CC: Some locals are apprehensive about the festival. They feel it may disturb the environment. What do you have to say to them?
Liquid Space: The Organizers being from Coorg understand local sentiments and present apprehensions. With a strong conviction towards preserving the environment, team-Storm takes the concept of “responsible Tourism experience” to a new level. With eco-friendly venue, minimal usage of plastic and innovative recycling techniques, Storm Festival promises to fulfil the green-cause. The festival is a total “drug- free zone” and has a zero tolerance policy against those who breach it.
Why should they move out. If they are doing it legally with all permissions from the local authorities, in their own private estate, whats wrong in that ?
Well its better move it around Bangalore or Mysore.
PLease note that Storm Festival has been Postponed to January 20th and 21st, 2012.