Crowd funding to promote indie art

The ticketed event will take place on November 2 at the Akshara Theatre

There are some indie artists who constantly crib about how there are no opportunities and sponsors for their gigs and then there are those who decide to beat the odds and organise a festival themselves.

Do It Yourself (DIY) Day -II is a crowd-funded event that will bring to the city a weekend filled with music, dance, theatre, poetry, film screenings and live art to provide a platform for creative people to express themselves.

Subhadra Kamat, co-coordinator of the festival, says the first time they came up with the idea was in April 2014 when the concept was fairly new and they had to actually explain the concept of crowd funding to people. After the success of their first attempt they decided to grow and have a two-day festival.

The campaign has raised over Rs 1 lakh with the contribution of both small as well as large donors who wish to support the talented artists in the city. Eight people from varied fields have come together to provide their expertise to help curate and organise the fest with the money collected.

“Most of us who have come together are actually quite fed up with the audience at restaurants who are there to eat and the music is just something happening in the background. Restaurant owners also want up to play popular songs instead of respecting us as original artists. All of us want just five minute for people to just sit and listen,” says Subhadra, who has been a vocalist with a number of bands in the city.

Most of the bands performing have a unique sound and were chosen after many entries were received.

The organisers had to increase the number of bands performing as they did not want to say no to someone with talent. While some of them have been around the circuit for a while there are a few artists for whom this will be their first major performance.

The line up includes Adi and Suhail, Five 8, The next Collective, Shadow and Light, The Yellow Bucket, Saurabh and Bhanu, The Doppler Effect, RUN It's the Kid, Curtain Blue, Kamakshi Khanna Collective, Begum and MindFlew among others.

To give the event a festive fervour, the venue will have stalls selling clothes, jewellery, accessories, quirky décor and food which are unlike what you get at stores across the city.

The ticketed event will take place on November 2 at the Akshara Theatre between 3 p.m. and 9 p.m.