NH7 Weekender is an annual, multi-city and multi-genre, music and comedy festival held in India, organised by NODWIN Gaming. It began in Pune, Maharashtra in India, as a three-day, multi-genre, music festival in 2010. Since 2012 it has expanded to multiple cities. In 2017, the lineup began to include comedy acts. The festival co-presenting sponsor is The McDowell's House of Soda
The festival is held between October and December, and hosted in multiple cities alongside its flagship event in Pune. Delhi NCR, Bengaluru, Kolkata, Hyderabad, and Shillong have hosted the festival. The lineup has a mix of established and newer, sub-continental and global artists.
History
In 2006, Vijay Nair, the co-founder and ex-CEO of OML (Only Much Louder), began formulating the idea of an Indian multi-genre music festival modeled after the Glastonbury Festival in Britain where he had taken Pentagram in 2005. In 2009 he met UK music manager Stephen Budd in Mumbai and they discussed the idea of creating an independent music festival. Nair came to London where Budd introduced him to Glastonbury booker Martin Elbourne and the three along with co-founder Girish ‘Bobby’ talwar soon planned and financed the first NH7 Weekender.[1]
The debut festival was held in Pune, in 2010, and was produced by OML. It was a three-day festival, had a multi-stage setup, and was multi-genre. It was headlined by international artists Asian Dub Foundation, The Magic Numbers, and Reverend and The Makers, along with well established Indian acts including Lounge Piranha, Junkyard Groove, Zero, and Demonic Resurrection.[1]
In 2012 the festival expanded to two cities and alongside Pune added multi stage and day festivals in Delhi and Bangalore. Since then, the festival has been held in Kolkata, Meghalaya, Hyderabad, and Shillong with smaller, single day, festivals in Mysore, Jaipur, Nagpur and other cities. In 2017, after OML's foray in the comedy business, the festival added a comedy lineup after having previously booked acts like All India Bakchod and Vir Das for musical performances. The festival is one of the first large scale music festivals in the South Asian sub-continent. Its programming is a mix of Indian independent acts, younger sub-continental artists, and multi-genre international headliners. Initially stages were broadly divided by genres rock and metal, electronic, indie, and folk. Each stage had two platforms, main and transition, with alternated performances. Over the past few years, the festival has ditched genre stages and headliners perform on the Bacardi Arena main stage.
The festival's debut edition was held from 10–12 December at Koregaon Park in Pune. The lineup had seminal Indian acts like Zero, Swarathma, Pentagram and Blackstratblues alongside international acts like Asian Dub Foundation and The Magic Numbers. The festival had four stages and hosted over 35 artists across three days. It was estimated the festival had 10,000 attendees over the course of three days.[2][3][4]
The festival travelled to four cities; Kolkata (14-15 Dec), Pune (28-29 Oct), Bangalore (23-24 Nov) and Delhi NCR (30 Nov – 1 Dec). Headliners included Chase and Status, Textures, Simian Mobile Disco, and MUTEMATH.[7]
Another city, Shillong (23-24 Oct), was added to the festival lineup. After Shillong, the festival travelled to Kolkata from 31 Oct – 1 Nov, followed by Delhi on 28-29 Nov, and in Pune and Bangalore from 4-6 Dec. This was the first year when the festival took place in two cities, Pune and Bangalore, on the same dates. Headliners included A. R. Rahman, Mogwai, Megadeth, Mark Ronson, Rodrigo y Gabriela, Flying Lotus, SBTRKT, and The Wailers.
The eighth edition of the festival began with the a return to the state of Meghalaya between 27 and 28 October. The edition saw over 25,000 attendees, before traveling back to its home city, Pune from 8-10 December, which estimated 45,000 in total attendance.[citation needed]
The 10th edition was held in Jaintia Hills in Meghalaya (1-2 November), and took place in Pune (29 November – 1 December). [9] In August 2019, to celebrate 10 editions of the music festival in Pune, where the first NH7 Weekender was held, pre-sale tickets were put on sale at the same prices they were sold at in 2010 — ₹750 (under 21 season tickets) and ₹1500 (regular season tickets). Headliners include Opeth, Nick Murphy, Karnivool, Marty Friedman, Kodaline and EarthGang.[10]
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