 "Durga Jasraj: Right on cue")
Singer Hariharan and mandolin maestro U Shrinivas were all set to perform at Idea Jalsa, a music concert at Orion Mall in Bangalore on March 23 last year. The event had been advertised heavily in newspapers, on FM radio, hoardings and social media, of course, but it still surprised the organiser when against an expected fullhouse of 4,000 people, more than 6,000 turned up for this free concert. Art & Artistes (A&A), the company behind the show, had to get bouncers to control the crowd and deter people from streaming in to the concert venue. It was, arguably, the first time ever that bouncers, a staple at rock concerts, had been employed at a non-film music concert.
Durga Jasraj was happy. Classical maestro Pandit Jasraj’s 48-year-old daughter had set up A&A in 1999 with the vague thought that non-film music had to be packaged and presented properly to reach more people. Bangalore showed that it could work.
It was among the 21 Idea Jalsa concerts in 12 cities such as Lucknow, Dehradun, Indore, Hubli and Ahmedabad all through 2013. At each, 4,000-6,000 people came to listen to Sufi, Indipop or classical music, among other genres. All the events were unticketed, but proved profitable, and turned the whole idea of how music can be marketed on its head.
In a country where 70 per cent of all sales and 100 per cent of all discussions are about music, “there is actually a very large market for non-film music”, says Neeraj Jaitly, director, A&A. Of its revenues of Rs 14 crore in the 2012-13 fiscal, more than 75 per cent came from concerts, of which Jalsa was the biggest brand. The rest came from producing music shows for television. The company’s end-to-end approach of discovering artistes and creating platforms for them to perform on, is making the Rs 1,100 crore Indian music industry sit up and take notice.
One part of A&A’s success can be attributed to serendipity. The other to Jasraj’s background and her search for the right way to integrate good alternative music, struggling musicians and commerce. Her travels abroad with her father, one of India’s best-known classical singers, had exposed her to world-class concerts. The way non-film music was showcased in India was, to quote her father, “enough to put people off classical music”. She felt this genre needed to be aroused. “It was always the same marigold flowers, the same music. There was a need to amalgamate other things with it,” says Jasraj.
But Jasraj had no idea what these could be. In the 1990s she had dabbled in everything to do with music, from designing a calendar for an MNC bank on the lives of contemporary music maestros to producing live music for the Femina Miss India pageant, from co-hosting Antakshari, a successful music-based game show on Zee TV, to acting in the chart-topping Chandrakanta TV series. She wasn’t, however, ever a music entrepreneur.
When she tired of Antakshari, she figured that she had gained enough fame to give her dream a shot. Her first attempt was a show called Utsav, for Star TV in 1998-99. It had musical heavyweights Zakir Hussain, Pandit Jasraj, Shiv Kumar Sharma and Hari Prasad Chaurasia talking about music’s association with a festival, like Diwali and Janmashthami, or decoding afternoon ragas and so on. However just when the production of Utsav was completed, Star’s management changed and the show never aired.
This upset Jasraj so much that she set up A&A with a team of like-minded people. The company made about 55 spiritual music albums with Times Music, did 19 TV shows and other special events.
In 2006 came the Indian Music Academy (IMA), the corporate social responsibility initiative of A&A. It unearths talent, which is then mentored by Pandit Jasraj free of cost. It also helps struggling musicians with stipends, medical aid and scholarships. Over the years IMA has created some big names. For instance, S Akash, a talented 12-year-old flautist, was discovered five years ago. Today he is a regular on the global concert circuit. Similarly, there are 6,000 artistes on A&A’s roster.
In 2008, Jaitly, then a consultant with EY (company earlier called Ernst & Young), came on board to become the commercial and operational brains of the company. He wrote the business plan for A&A at a time when the music business was evolving. The growth of digital technologies allowed a huge amount of music sampling, which then converted into a demand for live performances which offer better margins, “often as high as 40-50 per cent,” says Jaitly.
In India the non-film music live concert market is about Rs 600 crore, according to research done by A&A. It is dominated by corporate events, festivals and small-scale concerts that fall in the Rs 5-7 lakh range. These rely on people paying Rs 150 and upwards to attend events in auditoriums seating 800-1,200 people. However, “few come to the auditoriums. Then people say there is no market for classical music,” says Jaitly.
So A&A decided to tackle this perception with three big differentiators — programming, designing and marketing. A&A has discarded the whole idea of a single artiste performing for the entire length of the concert. Instead, Jasraj uses her innate understanding and experience of music to figure out what could work in a town. For instance, in Lucknow, the company invited Hariharan and qawalli singer Munnawar Masoom. In Hyderabad it was the Wadali brothers. The idea, says Jasraj, is for the bigger artiste to draw the crowd and then to introduce a new talent who can “mesmerise the crowd”.
Secondly, A&A doesn’t treat Lucknow or a Hubli as a small town. “Everywhere people have multiple choices. There is no concept of a small city any longer,” declares Durga. The venues are picked carefully to be in sync with the mood of the music as well as the sensibilities of the host city. These could be a beach (Vishakhapatnam) or a mall (Bangalore). The stage, lighting and giant LED screens are all just as they would be in any big city concert.
Then, A&A decided its marketing should be unlike any involving non-film music. The Bangalore concert, therefore, reached out to 3.37 million people through newspapers, 2.1 million through outdoor media and 2 million through radio. This is besides the 1.7 million people following the plans on A&A’s Facebook page or through other digital media.
Jasraj’s dream has now transformed into this unusual company that has found novel ways to market non-film music. Says Jasraj: “Our goals keep expanding, all the way to the horizon. We are now wondering how to maximise the two lakh-plus views on YouTube that A&A has got.” She plans to organise concerts across the world, bid for FM radio licenses, launch a TV channel and set up a manufacturing facility for musical instruments. To that end, A&A has already started the process of raising Rs 75 crore from high-net-worth individuals and private equity firms. The fund-raising should be completed by the first half of this year.
Durga Jasraj was happy. Classical maestro Pandit Jasraj’s 48-year-old daughter had set up A&A in 1999 with the vague thought that non-film music had to be packaged and presented properly to reach more people. Bangalore showed that it could work.
It was among the 21 Idea Jalsa concerts in 12 cities such as Lucknow, Dehradun, Indore, Hubli and Ahmedabad all through 2013. At each, 4,000-6,000 people came to listen to Sufi, Indipop or classical music, among other genres. All the events were unticketed, but proved profitable, and turned the whole idea of how music can be marketed on its head.
In a country where 70 per cent of all sales and 100 per cent of all discussions are about music, “there is actually a very large market for non-film music”, says Neeraj Jaitly, director, A&A. Of its revenues of Rs 14 crore in the 2012-13 fiscal, more than 75 per cent came from concerts, of which Jalsa was the biggest brand. The rest came from producing music shows for television. The company’s end-to-end approach of discovering artistes and creating platforms for them to perform on, is making the Rs 1,100 crore Indian music industry sit up and take notice.
* * *
One part of A&A’s success can be attributed to serendipity. The other to Jasraj’s background and her search for the right way to integrate good alternative music, struggling musicians and commerce. Her travels abroad with her father, one of India’s best-known classical singers, had exposed her to world-class concerts. The way non-film music was showcased in India was, to quote her father, “enough to put people off classical music”. She felt this genre needed to be aroused. “It was always the same marigold flowers, the same music. There was a need to amalgamate other things with it,” says Jasraj.
But Jasraj had no idea what these could be. In the 1990s she had dabbled in everything to do with music, from designing a calendar for an MNC bank on the lives of contemporary music maestros to producing live music for the Femina Miss India pageant, from co-hosting Antakshari, a successful music-based game show on Zee TV, to acting in the chart-topping Chandrakanta TV series. She wasn’t, however, ever a music entrepreneur.
When she tired of Antakshari, she figured that she had gained enough fame to give her dream a shot. Her first attempt was a show called Utsav, for Star TV in 1998-99. It had musical heavyweights Zakir Hussain, Pandit Jasraj, Shiv Kumar Sharma and Hari Prasad Chaurasia talking about music’s association with a festival, like Diwali and Janmashthami, or decoding afternoon ragas and so on. However just when the production of Utsav was completed, Star’s management changed and the show never aired.
This upset Jasraj so much that she set up A&A with a team of like-minded people. The company made about 55 spiritual music albums with Times Music, did 19 TV shows and other special events.
In 2006 came the Indian Music Academy (IMA), the corporate social responsibility initiative of A&A. It unearths talent, which is then mentored by Pandit Jasraj free of cost. It also helps struggling musicians with stipends, medical aid and scholarships. Over the years IMA has created some big names. For instance, S Akash, a talented 12-year-old flautist, was discovered five years ago. Today he is a regular on the global concert circuit. Similarly, there are 6,000 artistes on A&A’s roster.
* * *
In 2008, Jaitly, then a consultant with EY (company earlier called Ernst & Young), came on board to become the commercial and operational brains of the company. He wrote the business plan for A&A at a time when the music business was evolving. The growth of digital technologies allowed a huge amount of music sampling, which then converted into a demand for live performances which offer better margins, “often as high as 40-50 per cent,” says Jaitly.
In India the non-film music live concert market is about Rs 600 crore, according to research done by A&A. It is dominated by corporate events, festivals and small-scale concerts that fall in the Rs 5-7 lakh range. These rely on people paying Rs 150 and upwards to attend events in auditoriums seating 800-1,200 people. However, “few come to the auditoriums. Then people say there is no market for classical music,” says Jaitly.
So A&A decided to tackle this perception with three big differentiators — programming, designing and marketing. A&A has discarded the whole idea of a single artiste performing for the entire length of the concert. Instead, Jasraj uses her innate understanding and experience of music to figure out what could work in a town. For instance, in Lucknow, the company invited Hariharan and qawalli singer Munnawar Masoom. In Hyderabad it was the Wadali brothers. The idea, says Jasraj, is for the bigger artiste to draw the crowd and then to introduce a new talent who can “mesmerise the crowd”.
Secondly, A&A doesn’t treat Lucknow or a Hubli as a small town. “Everywhere people have multiple choices. There is no concept of a small city any longer,” declares Durga. The venues are picked carefully to be in sync with the mood of the music as well as the sensibilities of the host city. These could be a beach (Vishakhapatnam) or a mall (Bangalore). The stage, lighting and giant LED screens are all just as they would be in any big city concert.
Then, A&A decided its marketing should be unlike any involving non-film music. The Bangalore concert, therefore, reached out to 3.37 million people through newspapers, 2.1 million through outdoor media and 2 million through radio. This is besides the 1.7 million people following the plans on A&A’s Facebook page or through other digital media.
Jasraj’s dream has now transformed into this unusual company that has found novel ways to market non-film music. Says Jasraj: “Our goals keep expanding, all the way to the horizon. We are now wondering how to maximise the two lakh-plus views on YouTube that A&A has got.” She plans to organise concerts across the world, bid for FM radio licenses, launch a TV channel and set up a manufacturing facility for musical instruments. To that end, A&A has already started the process of raising Rs 75 crore from high-net-worth individuals and private equity firms. The fund-raising should be completed by the first half of this year.