The curator of live entertainment

We sit in a room on the 16th floor of a highrise in Khar which overlooks the Arabian Sea against the Mumbai skyline In a corner on the floor Karan Joseph a keyboard player who started his tryst with music at the age of three makes soft soothing melodiesSanjay Ahire founder of Artistivity PicsNikesh GuravAnother singer Noopur Khedkar strolls in plops herself on a settee and begins to hum to Josephrsquos tune The impromptu composition is mesmerising A strum of the guitar joins this rhapsody Its notes are almost inaudible and you have to strain to hear them ldquoI am no musicianrdquo Sanjay Ahire founder of Artistivity an artiste booking company smiles ldquoBut I am learning the guitarrdquo he addsThe vibe in his twostorey residencecumoffice is relaxed but it is evident that something substantial is brewing hereIn March 2012 Sanjay thought of creating a platform to help consumers book performing artistes for live gigs He began working on Artistivity to make the transaction between performers and clients transparent sans a middle man Today Artistivity has a curated database of more than 2500 musicians singers DJs dancers emcees standups and other newageperformersSanjay AhireLive performancesThe 39yearold calls his team and himself lsquolive performance expertsrsquo ldquoWe help our clients curate shows Be it a mall a restaurant lounge hotel theme parks or a wedding we understand the requirements the occasion study the budget and preference for talent genre and language and then suggest an artiste line up and combination of actsrdquo says Sanjay who is a diehard fan of Queen The Doors and Michael JacksonldquoThere are plans to do more albums collaborations and curation with some of our musician friends including Arijit Datta Vasuda Sharma Sanjay Divecha Sid Coutto Rachael Varghese Sonu Kakkar Vineeth Vincent Manish Anand Kunal Naik and Karan Josephrdquo says Sanjay Thus on one platform one can find a wide genre of musicians ranging from jazz blues Bollywood classical and even folk along with a host of standup comedians dancers and actorsIroning out delaysldquoThis industry has no structure and an artiste is paid only a small per cent of the total earnings that too three months after a gig Most event management companies artistesrsquo agencies and managers work with only 10 to 15 artistes What about the others who have talent and are looking for a chancerdquo says Sanjay who has worked in programming marketing business development and strategy consulting roles with various media and entertainment companies over 15 years before quitting his last corporate job in August 2013Friends of friendsTo implement the idea all he did was shout out to around 20 musician friends who in turn recommended 20 more fellow musicians ldquoThat is how I have built this network Every sign up on our website is screened When a user signs up as a performer an approval is required from the backend team We go through their SoundCloud YouTube videos and social media posts before featuring their profile on the siterdquo says Sanjay who has also made a mobile app for artistes to map their availabilityHe is also working towards setting up a lsquodiscount billingrsquo concept ldquoIn this setting an artiste wonrsquot have to wait to get paid for three months We have been speaking to financial institutes to make payment cycles stablerdquo he explains By end of this year Artistivity will offer booking services to large number of artists ldquoThis should help artistes with better negotiations collection of payments and contractsrdquo says the entrepreneurArtistesrsquo communityFrom doing two shows in the first month of their launch today Artistivity curates 50 to 60 gigs a week in six cities namely Mumbai Delhi Bangalore Pune Chennai and Hyderabad ldquoIn spite of the power of social media it is very tough for an artiste to tap clients Artistivity is a community for the artistes by the artiste of the artistesrdquo he addsThe team is also working on a membership card exclusively for artistes ldquoThis will offer benefits such as equipment and travel insurance cheaper travel and accommodation solutions for artistesrdquo says Sanjay Our last question about the name Artistivity brings a smile on Sanjayrsquos face ldquoThe concept is creativity and festivity Thus Artistivity is a celebration of all things creativerdquo he signs off