It is the shared passion for good food that unites different religions, castes and gender biases in the world. And while people across the globe eat to live, we Indians are known to ‘live to eat’. From over 1,00,000 different kinds of known food dishes being served across the country today, India is definitely the food capital of the world. From continental, to Italian, to Mexican to French, everything has comfortably found its place amidst the love India has for food.
Till October last year the country surprisingly lacked an event that celebrated nothing but our love for food. But with the entry of the first ever NDMC Palate Fest in November 2014 in Delhi, people now had a reason to celebrate their gastronomic desires
. This first of its kind food festival in the capital opened up to a thunderous response with people pouring in from even neighboring cities to join in.
Interestingly, this was perhaps one of the few timeswhen something had received such aunexpected response. What followed wasa slew of food festivals serving a chance to experiment with different flavors at one place. As most mid level food festivals failed to re-create the impact of Palate, the creators AditiKapoor and RuchiSibal made a return in February 2015 with a mini edition of the Palate Fest.
During this time all the other mid level food festivals went unnoticed. Then entered Aman Kumar, Arjun Jain, ChaitanyaMathur& Mani Singh with a new food festival named ‘The Grub Fest’ in April and the battle of food festivals got more interesting. With massive marketing campaigns and an extensive entertainment line-up The Grub Fest became the second food festival in the country to be organized on the same scale at Palate Fest.
And though they could not deliver to all what they promised on the first edition. The recently executed second edition of Grub Fest nailed the expectations of the audiences to near perfection with the attendees going gaga over it.
Another considerable edition to the food festival business recently was ‘Foodistan’ of the 10 Heads Festival by Trifecta Entertainment. While The Plate Fest and The Grub Fest were standalone food festivals, the 10 Heads hadFoodistan as one of 10 themes of the overall festival.
In conversation with AditiKapoor&RuchiSibal, the creators of The Palate Fest, Aman Kumar, Arjun Jain, ChaitanyaMathur& Mani Singh, the directors of the Grub Fest and AbhishekMankad, Festival Co-Director, 10 Heads Festival we decipher their recipes of making their respective festival models a clean hit.
The Grub Fest
Q-How did you all meet and how did the concept of The Grub Fest originate?
Arjun-Coming up with something like a Grub Fest had been Aman’s idea since 2011. He had discussed it earlier with his wife Sim and after a lot of contemplation he brought it up with his partner Mani. So the concept actually belongs to him.
Chaitanya- I was working in London as a banker and once I came back I was doing banking here as well. I later completed my chartered accountant course till level two and started my own events company called EME and it was during this time when I met Arjun.
Aman- Mani and I used to own an event company called Tricon media which did corporate events. We conceptualized the MRF challenge series. Plus we also did a lot of work for corporateslike Tata in Delhi we also have an office in London called Tricon Digital London which does digital marketing. So somewhere down the line we all were engaged in the events fraternity and were somehow connected. And rest as they say is history.
Q- Were there any inspirations from international food festivals?
Aman-Well, we wanted to do a premier food festival and by premier we meant creating pop-up restaurants via large spaces. The inspiration for these have been us visiting places like Chicago, LA, Seattle, the food festival bite of Seattle and Taste of London.
However, since we had to create something like an international food festival in a format that fits the landscape of India. And hence, instead of having no seating arrangements like international food festivals we decided to create pop up restaurants.
Our biggest pop up in the second edition was 2400 sq feet which is a 120 people seater restaurant. Our aim has always been to create an international food festival experience designed for India.
Q-Establishing a new IP from scratch is a daunting task. What were some of the challenges that you faced?
Aman- We mainly faced government related challenges, from license hassles, to prior approvals and local administration to support from the government. Our plan is to take the fest international, ironically when you conceptualize a festival outside India you get a lot of support from the government and that’s the challenge you face India, you are not supported at all to create something new.
Arjun- Basically we had to go to 8 different offices to get a permission, there is no support that the administration was willing to give easily; they would rather drag you back than actually helping you. They don’t understand it’s something good for the society, something that the tourism can also benefit from. They are more of a hindrance than a support.
Q- You had a tough time dealing with the cops at the first edition of the fest. What happened there?
Arjun- All the challenges have made us who we are now. The problems that we faced with the cops was that they made us move our box office and they also cancelled our entire entertainment lineup just two days before the event because we were also serving alcohol which they objected to.
Chaitanya- JLN being in the VIP area, it was the first time an event so huge was executed there with alcohol which the police were rather skeptical about. They thought if someone got intoxicated and perhaps misbehaved then it could be a big issue for them. So, 2 days before the event they came and said we cannot allow this to happen. So our second last advertisement of the event had our entire entertainment lineup and our last advertisement had no lineup at all. They only allowed Veer Das to perform as there was no music.
However, lessons were learned and for the second edition of the Grub we had all permissions in place.
Q-What were the reactions and footfall in both the editions?
Mani-We had 75,000 people who came to the first edition and 50000 people came to the second edition since we were only covering Gurgaon and a small part of south Delhi in the second edition. We also received requests that please make this a permanent structure as we had some of the best food brands at one place with so much happening at the same time in terms of art installations, engagements and also stellar line up as far as entertainment is concerned.
Overall people loved the ambience of both the editions.Grub also received great reviews from people in terms of the security aspects as well.
Q-What is the kind of money you have invested in creating the Grub Fest?
Aman- Well, we cannot share the exact figures with you but all I can say is that in food festivals we would be investing more than 2 million pounds over the next year. That is our plan and that is the kind of investment you should be looking at if you are serious about creating a food festival of a different level.
Q- What is the number of sponsors you had in first and second season?
Aman-I believe, no other event in the country attracts close to 1,00,00 people so events like Grub are a heaven for a sponsors. Compared to a music festival which has 10,000 people at a food festival you are looking at just 10 times the audiences and different levels of engagement. We really multiplied our sponsors in the second edition by 4 times.
Chaitanya- It was easier the second time, since the concept was introducedpeople already knew about it.
Q-What were the highlights of the second edition of The Grub Fest?
Chaitanya- For the first time we came up with a four storied travelling restaurant,which provided a 360 degree view of the entire festival. We had Varun Behl doing art installations; we hadflash mobs, infrastructure wise we were more sorted this time as we had luxury washrooms, luxury carts to take people from one place to another.
Mani- We also had Grub Explore, where people could have cuisines from around the such as Bengali .Nagaland, Costal, Kashmiri, Iranian and others.
Q- The Grub Fest came after NDMC Palate fest had already established the concept of a food festival in Delhi. Obviously there are direct comparisons between the two. What do you have to say on that?
Mani- We have a lot of respect for the girls who introduced Palate. When Palate came it showed us something that we had already planned to do but never implemented. With that being said we believe in healthy competition with people who have a vision like us and Palate is something that we have always admired.
Q-When is the next edition of The Grub Fest happening?
Aman- Well, plans are to go to Bangalore, Pune and come back to Delhi in March again. We are also excited about taking the festival out of India to places like Dubai and Singapore.
Chaitanya- We will also be creating properties around Grub such as a Grub Carnival which will be much bigger in magnitude and Grub Express which will be a food festival for tier two and tier three cities.
The Palate Fest
Q-How did you two meet and how was the idea of creating Palate fest born?
Ruchi- We met as parents while our kids were in the same class in nursery so that is how we became friends. During that time itself we decided that we should do something big and different as it makes no sense to do something which is already out there. Once our kids were a little older our common passion for food has us discussing about creating the first of its kind food festival and that is how NDMC Palate fest was born. It took us 1.5 years to decipher on what should be the elements of the festival, what should it showcase, how to get the best hospitality partners and other crucial elements. We feel really glad to see that our efforts paid off and none of this could have happened without the support from the government.
Q-Was the idea of Palate fest inspired from any international food festival?
Ruchi- Actually no. For Palate fest we did our own curation from scratch. Most food festivals that we have seen so far have just been about having a kiosk and selling what they have, this is something that we really wanted to change and thus creating Palate festival was a different concept and experience all together.
Q- What were some of the biggest roadblocks in your journey?
Aditi- Since, Palate was the first food festival of its kind to take place ever the country it took a lot of time for us just convincing people about our vision. There were a lot of people who supported us and a lot more who didn’t. Also a challenge was to bring different cuisines, embassy partners and the necessary art & music support. Our idea was always to create a food festival that could be enjoyed by anyone from the age of 1-101 but since we were the first ones to come up with this concept it took us a people a lot more convincing.
Q-We have seen two other food festivals recently. One being The Grub Fest and the other being Foodistan, both of them had an entry fee. What makes Palate Fest free?
Aditi- Our idea for a food festival has always been people enjoying in the park as if it’s a family picnic. So Why to stop them or put a cap on entering the festival? They will anyways be paying for the food they eat. Yes it is challenging for any food festival revenue wise to not have an entry fees but our vision was always very clear. In fact, we also had many people sharing that drivers also attended the festival with their families. And that was the idea of what we wanted to create, a family experience that anyone could enjoy and thanks to the support of the government we managed to do that.
Q-What was the response that you received at the first edition?
Ruchi-We had some 1,00,000 people entering by day 2 and then we just stopped counting.
Q-When is the next edition of the NDMC Palate Fest and what can we expect from it?
Ruchi- Well considering this is second Palate fest it is obviously going to be bigger and better. One can expect more than 60 restaurants to participate in comparison to 35 last year and over 35 cards compared to 22 in the previous edition. We have a lot of surprises as well in terms of different cuisines and art installations. Bands like Euphoria and Nasha are also slated to perform as far as the music quotient of the event is concerned and we are also partnering with Hindustan Times who will be creating on-ground engagement at the upcoming New Delhi edition on the 27
th-29
th November 2015.
Q-What according to you is the size of the food festival business in the country?
Aditi-I think we are standing at a very nascent stage of organizing food festivals in the country and it is too early for us or anyone to actually comprehend of its business size. The fact of the matter is that it is getting bigger and better with every edition which is being organized which makes it very interesting. Plus Food is the essence of life in India and hence food festivals always have a great future ahead.
Q-The second edition of The Grub Fest has received positive reviews from the people. Does that put a pressure on you?
Ruchi- No, as we have our own niche and goals in place. Our idea has always been to put 200% of our efforts into creating this and we have our own vision so with or without any other food festival in place we would have worked the same as we are working now.
Q- When is the next Palate after Delhi this November?
Aditi- We also have a Palate happening in Chandigarh at Leisure Valley 25
th-27
th December this year. Next year we shall begin with the Palate Mini in Feb. Our plan is to expand into cities like Pune and Bangalore as well and make Palate an annual property there as well.
10 Heads Festival
Q- 10 Heads Festivals had ten different concepts in one property which included the food festival Foodistan. Any reasons for not creating a standalone food festival?
Abhishek-We had that idea as well but decided to elevate it up a notch. We wanted to go beyond food and engage people completely. At a food festival what happens is people come eat, listen to music and go whereas at 10 Heads what we saw was families coming in and staying longer period. We wanted to create a family experience that had something to offer to everyone and hence we created 10 Heads Festivals that offered the experience of a food festival but with so much more.
Q-What is the amount of investment you had put in to create the 10 Heads Festival?
Abhishek- We spent somewhere around 3.5 crores to create the entire festival together.
Q-Why do you think a concept of 10 different themes of experiences works better than a conventional one-themed festival?
Abhshek- There is no comparison between 10 Heads Festival and other conventional food carnivals as the engagement with 10 heads is 10 times more considering it has more variety to offer. We got some amazing feedback from the audience as well. People appreciated the concept we came up with and even the government officials were really happy. It was a differentiated festival and was enjoyed by all.
Q- What was the footfall registered at Foodistan?
Abhishek- We had approximately 50000-60000 people coming over 4 days of the festival.
Q- When will we see the next edition of the 10 Heads festival?
A-Well we will now be travelling to 3-4 cities with individual festivals themes like Foodistan. But considering we have just executed the festival nothing more can be revealed as of now.
(The article first appeared in Oct-Nov '15 issue of BW APPLAUSE)
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