Utopian Dystopia

It took me 18 months to write about this, Utopian Dystopia - something that I am immeasurably proud being a part of. Mid 2021, I was on holiday, hiking in the Himalayas with my brother. I got a call from my best friend Nisham and he said 'We are organising an art festival and it is called Utopian Dystopia!' - Another buffoonery, I thought. Because we had already spent 8+ years talking about things like this.. opening a cafe, a climate change activism group, revolutionary apps, a music festival, a rap group, a magazine, a novel, a film script, multiple start-ups and ideas - some which we never started and some that we left at 10%. I got a few more calls from him in the next few days and before I knew it, I was in charge of marketing and communication and in a core team of amazing talents like Elwin Charly, Asif Rahman, Vinod Ramaswamy etc. We had fabulous branding & an active social media in a couple of weeks and open calls from artists, techies and more from all across India and even other parts of the world. Long story short, on July 2nd 2022, we kicked off the greatest celebration of art, tech & design that India had ever seen. 400+ artists from all over the world came with their own creativity into a single building on the outskirts of Kochi city in Kerala! Every evening had multiple stages for music, fashion, food and tech stalls and a massive media, celebrity and influencer presence + a crowd of 25000 over 7 days! It wasn't an 'art festival' as Nisham had mentioned on the call anymore, it was something unexplainable but only understood when felt. What was the marketing cost? Zero. Apart from all the effort and time spent by the team, irrespective of the departments - tapping into one's own network, creating posts and videos, knocking on every possible door, there was not a single penny put into marketing except a handful of posters we printed. It was strategic partnerships with media houses and communities like Radio Mango, PinkLungi etc along with tapping into a wide volunteer network of students and word of mouth that worked for us. UD has proved to me that if you have a solid product, a team that can build with every drop of sweat - 'they will come'. We all - a team of 40+ people and an extended network of 100+ volunteers came together in sync, with one beat and one force. Thanks to the support and advice from KSIDC Official , CREDAI National Kerala, Indian Medical Association Kochi, Kerala Startup Mission, Kerala Tourism and other honourable mentors and patrons. I am pretty sure that this shouldn't be a short LinkedIn post and shouldn't come after 18 months from the festival but sorry, we all were recovering from the first and preparing for the next - Utopian Dystopia 24, Loading!! Keep an eye on our Instagram - https://lnkd.in/gjkp5cDr - but take a breath before that! 💥 FYI, the below video was the trailer for UD22. #utopiandystopia #arttechdesign #ud24