ACRI in collaboration with SPI Edge hosted the first episode of the Next: series - titled Next: Margazhi to start conversations about how to begin cultural events post-pandemic - keeping Chennai’s biggest cultural festival, the Margazhi music season at the center of the conversations.
The session was a conversation between Mahesh Venkateswaran (Founder, MadRasana), Sudha Raghunathan (Carnatic Vocalist), Harishankar Krishnaswami (Secretary, Narada Gana Sabha) moderated by Akhila Krishnamurthy (Founder, Aalaap).
The session explored different perspectives of stakeholders in Chennai’s largest cultural festival from artistes to innovators to Sabha owners. The discussion largely revolved around the impact that going digital has had on performances - especially the increasing importance of curating content for a digital audience, and how this has changed the format and content of concerts. The panel took a peek at what the notoriously famous sabha food experience would look like in a world of digital concerts and how that experience could be recreated, and also explored the future of sabhas in a phygital context - similar to a T20 experience where we have audiences at the venue and also tuning in digitally.
The session ended on a positive note with the panel concluding that collaboration between artists, technologists and innovators was the way forward, hinting at how virtual reality could be one of the ways forward!