Festival Organizers BlueTree Want to Make Live Music In Delhi Great Again

The new year starts off with big promises from New Delhi-based music company BlueTree, who are putting together Outrage Festival on January 13th (open-air at Nexus Select Citywalk in Saket) and Oddball Festival on February 24th and 25th in New Delhi and Bengaluru.

Between these two events, everyone from metal bands like Kryptos to Zygnema and Chaos are performing at Outrage Festival this week, followed by the return of Norwegian prog band Leprous, Polish guitar ace Jakub Zytecki, Avial and more at Oddball Festival’s second edition, which has previously hosted virtuoso trio The Aristocrats, Bloodywood and Blackstratblues in 2023.

The company’s Karan Mehta – also guitarist in prog metallers Colossal Figures – says that putting together bigger live events like rock/metal festivals in New Delhi has meant that the odds are always stacked against them. “But we must prevail and we will,” he says. Mehta says particularly with Outrage Festival, it was something “that our newly formed community asked for.”

Sethi adds, “We want the teenagers and young, 20-somethings of today to feel what we witnessed at Hamsadhwani Stadium through the 2000s.” All of this comes with a similar set of risks that past and present promoters take on while putting together independent gigs. “We have to tread carefully we’re funding this ourselves with shallow pockets, a successful edition doesn’t necessarily translate to financial success either, there are so many variables attached to this, we’re learning as we go,” he adds.

With a packed gig calendar of tours and music festivals to choose from (and budget their savings into for tickets), the Indian gig-goer’s demands and expectations have always been tough to meet. Oddball Festival announcements – which will have at least one more international headliner that matches the event series’ genre-hopping curatorial spirit – were greeted with some disappointment and questions of why a Mumbai stop isn’t on the cards.

Mehta points to the “operational challenge” for a small team like theirs in mounting a three-city Oddball Festival edition like they’d done last year. Although they had entertainment company 4/4 from Mumbai to help them, he says it was too much to take on this time. Sethi adds that ticket sales were also affected in all cities due to a new entrant like Oddball vying for attention amongst bigger events like Lollapalooza India and Vh1 Supersonic in the same timeframe. Nevertheless, a Mumbai edition of Oddball Festival is scheduled take place in April.

Although a few other gigs from BlueTree have taken place, Mehta says it’s been a “very hard year to host more” in the capital. “What we have been somewhat successful in is bringing more brands to support bands here and we look forward to building on the same. This should come in effect in the years to come,” Mehta adds.

Another edition of Outrage Festival in August is expected, with more artist tours later in the year. Sethi says a multi-stage festival from BlueTree is on the cards, “our own version of Woodstock.” Mehta adds, “We have also been working on building new IPs with brands, more on which will be revealed in the second quarter of 2024.”

Outrage Festival takes place on January 13th at The Plaza, Nexus Select Citywalk, New Delhi. Get tickets here.

Oddball Festival takes place on February 24th and 25th in New Delhi and Bengaluru (two days in each city). Get tickets here.