New Tourism Minister Manohar Azgaonkar is not the first to announce that the government would identify special zones for late-night music festivals. The search for such zones has eluded the government for over years and now Azgaonkar wants to accomplish what everyone else failed to do. Secondly, the state government never said, ‘no’ to music festivals. All it said was that electronic dance festivals which were normally organized at spots along the beach belt would not be permitted during the peak tourism season. Except for last year, Goa used to play host to two such festivals – Sunburn and Supersonic. Both were forced to move out after the government said no EDMs would be held between 15 December and 15 January.
Then, Dilip Parulekar was the tourism minister and the reasoning was that having such big crowd pullers in peak season was putting excessive load on existing infrastructure. The government was criticized for ignoring problems of overcrowding, parking issues and noise problems and this prompted it to take a decision to move the festivals outside the peak season. Another factor that stopped the EDMs in their tracks was money owed to the government in back fees. All these factors, put together, forced EDM organisers to leave, although Goa continues to remain their first choice.
Why does Azgaonkar want to change this policy? Why does he want to overturn this well-thought out policy? And when the minister talks about special zones is he contemplating a shift towards the interior? Goa is much sought after on account of its beaches. The brand is synonymous with the ubiquitous image of swaying palms, white sand and surf. Take that away and there will be no difference between having an EDM in Pune and Goa. Azgaonkar will have to be more specific on this count. Secondly, if at all the minister is of the view that EDMs ought to be held along the beach belt then the question is where? And more importantly, when? It is only when these questions are answered that the minister will have to tell us how he intends to recover the dues and what he plans to do to about infrastructure.
EDMs are crowd pullers, but do we need these crowd-pullers during the peak season? The reasoning of the previous government was to use them to pull crowd during the non-peak season, but then organisers were not so sure if dance festivals could accomplish this. If the minister wants to turn Goa into a music destination then he needs to go beyond EDMs. He needs to draw a variety of music and cultural festivals to the state. One can either pack it in a specific time frame or spread them across the season depending on what is good for the audience and the state. Goa is an international place and it needs an international itinerary and Azgaonkar will have to dish out more details about his music plans.
