Indie music industry in Kerala turns to digital concerts during lockdown

The lockdown to combat the spread of the Coronavirus has seen musicians across the globe entertaining listeners through live gigs on different social media platforms. However, musicians too have to earn their bread and butter. And so they will now sing for their supper on ticketed shows streamed on digital platforms.

Frontline musicians such as Harish Sivaramakrishnan, Sithara Krishnakumar and Job Kurian should have been currently touring the United States with their respective bands but for the global lockdown. However, on May 9, they will be going live for a ticketed audience at a two-hour e-concert, ‘Intersect’, at 9 pm hosted on the video-conferencing app Zoom. Each ticket is priced ₹200.

“It is the first of the ‘Intersect’ e-concerts series we are planning to do in association with Paytm Insider. The second one, scheduled for May 16, features Govind Vasantha, Chinmayi Sripaada and KS Harisankar,” says Sujith Unnithan, chief operating officer, Wonderwall Media, which manages the musicians and their bands.

Performing artistes and event managers have been looking for alternative avenues to keep the industry afloat during these uncertain times. “It might take several months for things to get back to normal. That’s why we created a platform that allows organisers to publish, ticket and manage digital events. It currently supports Zoom-based event publishing and we plan to add support for more platforms soon,” says Sooraj JS, business development manager, Paytm Insider. He adds that while it is possible for more than 10,000 people to join these sessions, they are planning to limit it to a fixed number.

The platform has already been used by comedian Sahil Shah to run his own ticketed online stand-up comedy show. A statement from Paytm Insider states, “An event is created automatically for organisers at the set time on the supported web conferencing platform (Zoom) when they set up their event on Paytm Insider. The team has also ensured that the digital event is restricted to ticket buyers only and limited to one login per buyer.” Besides free/ticketed concerts and stand-up acts, workshops, online courses, art and theatre events and health/fitness sessions are also being conducted via this platform.

The artistes say though they have doubts about the feasibility of digital events, this is the only option in the current scenario. “Holding live sessions on Facebook or Instagram is an informal arrangement; we are doing it for free to entertain listeners. In the case of an e-concert, people pay to listen to us and so we can’t compromise on quality at any level,” says Job.

However, the artistes say technical hiccups that can happen, especially latency, network speed, audio quality and so on. Harish feels that both the artistes and the audience will have to condition themselves for such concerts. “It is true that we won’t get instant reactions from the audience at an e-concert. But the positive is you might end up getting the largest audience of your career. In a recent Facebook live, I got 7,000 listeners,” says Harish, lead vocalist of Agam.

Sithara opines that, looking forward, digital platforms are going to be the performance spaces for artistes “This is the future. Members of my band are now exploring new technical applications to see whether we can perform together from our homes. We don’t know how e-concerts will pan out, but a beginning has to be made in that direction,” she says. While Job says that in spite of all the unknowns, the concert has charged him up in this difficult times.

Another initiative to support artistes has been taken by shaale.com, a platform for traditional Indian art forms that has been streaming curated performances and courses. It is already streaming Udupa Music Festival for a subscription amount of ₹1,200 in association with bookmyshow. One can watch six concerts from the festival at any time and any number of times till May 3.

The artistes include Mysore Nagaraj & Mysore Manjunath, Shankar Mahadevan, Karaikudi Mani, Shivkumar Sharma, Hariprasad Chaurasia, Sivamani, Stephen Devassy, U Rajesh, Abhishek Raghuram, Rahul Sharma and Rakesh Chaurasia, to name a few. The proceeds will be used to support musicians and instrument makers.