The Campaign

The concept of BMP was conceived because there was no music festival in India catering to the Bollywood music fan, whereas there are roughly 15 large scale music festivals catering to the EDM and indie music fan. Since there was a first mover advantage, we decided to pay tribute to the Indian music fraternity with the first season of BMP. This went on to become a festival created by Bollywood musicians for Bollywood music lovers. The festival décor was created, keeping in mind, that this was a festival paying tribute to Bollywood music. The décor encompassed elements showing the evolution of music, right from the gramophone, back in the day, to music streaming, today. The festival was also programmed in order to where upcoming musicians paid their tributes to the stalwarts of Bollywood music by performing covers of their biggest hits.

Creative Execution

The estimated $2.5 million media plan encompassing more than 250 outdoor hoardings, over 25 print ads in leading newspapers, TV promos on leading national TV channels, along with radio spots on 5 radio stations ensured that the buzz was kept alive across all media platforms leading up to the festival in both cities. An extensive college outreach program featuring Karaoke jams in 75 colleges across Mumbai and Delhi was carried out. BMP Voice Hunt, India’s only festival talent hunt, went on a 7-city audition tour at Inox Cinemas to judge over 15,000 entries received. At the festival, the BMP Voice Hunt winners went on to open for Arijit Singh and Rekha Bharadwaj in Mumbai, and for Raftaar and Sajid-Wajid in Delhi. The festival was livestreamed on various DTH and digital content platforms to an estimated 50M+ audience, and was attended by over 50,000 fans of all ages.

BMP is the only music festival in the country to have pulled off two successful editions in its debut year. The inaugural edition in Mumbai had two stages and was attended by a massive crowd of over 20,000 Bollywood music fans. Six months later, for the Delhi edition, we added another stage and curated an entire line-up of emerging artistes and social media sensations for the newly added stage for an estimated 25,000 fans. While BMP Mumbai engaged an estimated 25 million people digitally, the Delhi edition of BMP engaged over 60 million people digitally. Over two editions, about 120 of the biggest names in Bollywood Music, along with over 400 musicians, came together to perform never-heard-before experimental, alternative Bollywood music. After kick-starting music festival season in the country, the first season of BMP has successfully established Bollywood as a standalone genre in the music festival scenario in India.

Touted as Asia’s Largest Bollywood Music Festival, Bollywood Music Project (BMP) curates experimental Bollywood music through biggest headliners for South Asian Hindi speaking audiences globally. In its debut season, BMP took place in Mumbai and Delhi on September 30-October 1, 2016 and March 25-26, 2017 respectively; where over 120 of the biggest names in Bollywood Music including Arijit Singh, Amit Trivedi, Vishal & Shekhar, Rekha Bharadwaj, Hariharan, Badshah, Raftaar, Neeti Mohan and Sachin-Jigar along with over 400 musicians performed to a crowd of over 50,000 people in a multi-stage, multi-genre format.

According to the KPMG-FICCI Indian Media report 2017, 81% of all music streamed in India is Bollywood-led. While all existing music festivals in India cater to the 16-30 age groups, BMP is the only entity that caters to all demographics across the country. This is as much a festival for the urban millennial whose playlist is cluttered with Adele and Ed Sheeran, but breaks their heart over Arijit Singh; as it is for the 40-year-old who wants to have a good time with their family while listening to music that will cater to all generations and tastes.