Growth of Bollywood Events in Japan
Coming from Singapore to Tokyo in 2015, I dearly missed the Bollywood Events — with a big community of Bollywood music and dance lovers, Singapore had 3–4 big night clubs dedicated to Bollywood music alone. Things were a bit different in Tokyo then. Bollywood Events were small and rare, mostly happening on festivals in small bars or restaurants. These events were attended by a small group of people of South Asian and Japanese origin, who were passionate about Bollywood music. To add to this, music was most often played through Youtube by “amateur” DJs.
Fast forward to August 2022, there are Bollywood parties happening almost every month, with some popular DJs in Japan getting interested in it. The last event happened in one of the biggest clubs in the heart of Tokyo in Roppongi and was attended by more than 200 people amidst the crazy situation of Covid-19. So how did the transition happen?
It was in 2016 when Wada-san, one of the most passionate Japanese-origin Bollywood music lover, started doing Bollywood events in an African bar called Padi’s Tokyo (then Kingstone Bar). The event frequency was once every 2–3 months and attracted a small group of 15–20 people, passionate for Bollywood music, including myself. Looking at my passion for Bollywood music, Wada-san offered me to play DJ alongside him. And so the journey of Bollywood Beats Tokyo (BBT) started. With Wada-san’s energy and my choice of music, BBT started becoming popular and our audience base grew with each event. We moved to another bar called R4F and soon to a club called LEX Tokyo, where we reached the audience base of 100 people joining a single event. During this journey, we also invited Shivangi-san to our team, who brought a new freshness to the music choice and helped in expanding the event further. It was in January 2020, just before the Covid outburst that our event gathered close to 150 people. Soon after, we were discussing with one of the biggest clubs in Tokyo to host us for the next event, that might attract 200 attendees. With a huge community of South Asians, Japanese and their friends interested in Bollywood music, we thought Bollywood could be the next big thing in Japan!
But destiny had other plans-Covid became a serious issue in Japan and all over the world and impacted our plans as well as the business of a lot of clubs. Our host club, LEX had to shrink their business and eventually close. By 2021 end, we tried planning some events but due to the uncertainty of the government restrictions and covid spread, we could not go all-in to organize a large-scale event. We did have a few small scale private events, inviting some of our loyal attendees
It was only around the start of 2022 that vaccinations became common and people started realizing that Covid is here to stay for long. There was a surge in young and party-goers in Tokyo, including those interested in Bollywood music. While Bollywood Beats Tokyo was still reluctant to restart our events, a couple of organizers came forward and booked big venues for their version of “Bollywood Nights” in Tokyo. They were absolutely great in their marketing and targeted young section of audience. And the result was amazing- with big clubs still recovering from the Covid time, these Bollywood Night events gave them a respite and at the same time, a sense of happiness to the audience who had been waiting to enjoy Bollywood since a long time. Looking at this success, there are 4–5 organizers of Bollywood events in Japan now with each trying their best to improve the audience experience. In July 2022, there were 2 Bollywood events on the same night by different organizers and both attracting more than 100 attendees. Hope this streak continues and my dream of Bollywood music getting popular in Japan is fulfilled soon!
As an update, Bollywood Beats Tokyo (BBT) would be getting active too and we would be organizing our next event on 3rd September 2022 with Vipin-san joining the BBT team! If you are in Tokyo and interested in Bollywood music, do join us! Event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/1041211563201450/
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