With less than a week left for the 17th edition of Indian advertising industry’s much awaited and largest festival- the Goafest 2024, to commence at Westin Powai, Mumbai, rather than its usual location- Grand Hyatt, Bambolim (Goa), the organising committee of the Goafest has duly ensured that this year’s theme- ‘The Age of Adaptability’ aligns with not just the speakers and sessions line up but the various aspects of the three-day symposium.
That being said, when the venue of the Goafest 2024 was shifted from Goa to Mumbai due to Lok Sabha Elections, the decision seemed to have shocked many as the backdrop of the event changed from the breezy blue beach to that of being a few kilometres away from the madness in the advertising city of the country as well as a small lake.
Speaking to Marketing Mind on the change in venue, Prasanth Kumar (aka PK) who serves as the President of the Advertising Agencies Association of India and CEO of GroupM South Asia, stated that keeping true and in the spirit of this year’s theme- ‘The Age of Adaptability’, the organising committee has given a break and decided to conduct Goafest in Mumbai this time around due to the LS Polls 2024 and return the festival to its usual location- Goa, next year.
Highlighting the impact of venue change on the number of registrations for the three-day event, he stated, “When we had a look at the numbers of registrations we’d received for Goafest 2024 so far, we found out that the number of registrations has been quite encouraging, with the three-day event crossing the four digit mark already and the numbers are still growing. Last year, we had close to about 1,600 registrations for the festival and we’re hopeful that this year’s edition surpasses the same.”
In fact, now that the festival is happening in Mumbai itself, he mentioned that the committee is expecting a greater number of last minute on-desk registrations also happening for the Goafest 2024.
Within this, he also mentioned that what’s all the more heartening is the diversity in the registrations made by agencies and publishers and the fact that a lot more people from the client-side and multiple other ecosystems such as entertainment, content, tech, etc. will be attending the festival.
“It is happening for the first time that apart from AAAI and The Ad Club, all of the industry bodies such as IAA, ISA, AFA, ASCI, IAMAI, INS, ABC, IBDF, IOAA, etc. are participating in the three-day event making it our industry’s largest event in the country at the moment,” he emphasised.
Emphasising on the hygiene factor that the Goafest’s Organising Committee has taken into account as usual, PK also drew attention to the fact that since the three-day event isn’t just meant for one or two people but for everybody in the industry, the location has been kept such that it is slightly away from the madness of the town which is often referred to as the Advertising Capital of India.
“We’ve also tried to ensure that everybody has a space of their own so that they can catch up with their colleagues, fellow members and old and new friends and have a good time even as they take some great learnings back with them for every subject that goes through every single panel this time around has different nuances of how one can apply adaptability from the current context on another context or a sub-context within a larger space,” he said.
Aligning with the theme of the festival, the Goafest 2024 will see several experienced and senior leaders from various facets of the industry with different sets of expertise coming together to talk about being adaptive in different functionalities and inspire people to be versatile by guiding them on the various practices which can lead to better outcomes.
In the 16th edition of the Goafest, it was Nick Law who took the centre stage with one of the keynotes. However, this time, the focus has shifted from being on the lens of different markets to that of diverse topics being discussed during the festival to encompass the expanded aspects of the ecosystem, as per PK, since what is happening in the industry today is that Media, Creative, Technology, Content, etc. are no more operating in silos but conglomeration or confluence.
“Now that everything’s coming together, we believe that it is essential for the people who have been in this industry for long to talk to the new generation of colleagues and therefore expanding the lens to multiple spaces, and not just geographies, in terms of panel discussions, keynotes and others. That being said, there has been a huge amount of evolution happening in the Indian market from a GDP standpoint as well, hence looking at learning from other global markets as a community is continuous for us,” he said.
Delving further into the agenda for Goafest 2024, he mentioned that it is not just limited to industry topics but includes other facets like entertainment, sports and inspiring stories of people to maintain a good balance with the experts from the economic and business aspects also coming in along with the tech partners to share their thoughts.
“For us personally, the first two sessions and a keynote address from two significant leaders and legends in the industry are something that we are eagerly looking forward to. But there’s a lot of thought that has been put into curating the topics for the rest of the panels and making sure that the same talk about the newer aspects and trends that one sees in the industry and how we can adapt and change accordingly,” he said.
In addition, he also mentioned that the sessions have not been curated to only include an advertising perspective this time but rather expand the discussions to that of clients and their businesses and areas like sports, entertainment, etc. to showcase how the storytelling aspect has also evolved with time.
Amping up its entertainment quotient, the Goafest 2024 is all set to host the second edition of ‘Advertising Rocks’, a musical talent show for the industry.
“The reason we started Advertising Rocks last year was that we felt that there is a lot of versatile talent within our industry and the property can be a great opportunity for our own talent to come and share their feelings and display and celebrate their different talents with all of us. And while the journey began last year, we all feel that we should not do Advertising Rocks only during off-work but keep it alive throughout the year and therefore the teams are thinking about ways to do so,” PK pointed out.
With this, he also mentioned that since music is a very interesting platform as it allows us to have some great refresher, it is also essential to understand one should not overdo it to keep the essence intact.
Taking up from here, Jaideep Gandhi aka JD, Chairperson of the Goafest Organising Committee, said, “We wanted to establish the Advertising Rocks for three years first and then start withthe creation of new IPs within the Goafest. Hence, we will most likely be introducing one more IP next year.”
Concludingly, he added, “Visionaries like Sundar Swamy, Arvind Sharma, Colvyn Harris, Ambi Parameswaran, Nagesh Alai, Nakul Chopra, Ashish Bhasin, Sam Balsara and Shashi Sinha have been key pillars of shaping and scaling Goafest to this magnitude over the last 16 years. Each one of them made unique contributions that made the festival larger, and relevant each year.”
