The ultra-famous music festival Lollapalooza will make its Indian debut in Mumbai on January 28 and 29 in 2023.
Lollapalooza’s First Time in Asia
Originating as a touring event in 1991 and later making Chicago its permanent home, Lollapalooza is a four-day music festival held in Grant Park, Chicago, Illinois. The festival hosts an estimated 400,000 people each July and sells out annually drawing hundreds, if not thousands of Indian American and South Asian diaspora from across the US. Lollapalooza is one of the largest and most iconic music festivals in the world and one of the longest-running in the United States.
After a 30 year dominance in the States, Lollapalooza is traveling to Asia for the first time with Mumbai being its first destination. India is a price sensitive live music market with a growing appetite for international music all thanks to the streaming era.
A lineup for the Indian edition has yet to be revealed. An announcement touts “a full two days of music across four stages as well as innovative culinary selections, art, fashion and more.”
The music of India is transcendental, it draws our spirits East,” said Lollapalooza founder Perry Farrell. “Lollapalooza is an instrument for unity, peace, and education utilizing the universal languages of music and art to find common ground.”
According to Billboard, the festival will be held at an unannounced venue “in the center of the city,” will feature around 45 acts playing 20 hours of music across four stages to an audience of 60,000 fans each day. The line-up will comprise 60% international artists and 40% local acts.
India was chosen as the next destination for the multi-genre festival — which has expanded to three countries in South America and three in Europe over the past decade — because it is a large potential market which traditionally has been underserved by U.S. and European acts, says C3 Presents partner Charlie Walker.
“BookMyShow is proud to bring Lollapalooza to India – making it the 8th country and the 4th continent to do so. With a mix of some stellar Indian talent and global artists coming together on the same stage, we expect nothing short of magic,” said Ashish Hemrajani, Founder & CEO, BookMyShow, to Variety.
The Indian edition of the festival has been in the works for at least four years, says BookMyShow founder and CEO Ashish Hemrajani, but plans were delayed on account of the pandemic. Hemrajani says the time is ripe now for such an event.
Lollapalooza India is produced by Perry Farrell, William Morris Endeavor Entertainment, C3 Presents and BookMyShow. It is the eighth country to host the festival, in addition to the United States, Chile, Brazil, Argentina, Germany, France and Sweden.