Imagine if you could have musicians and artists come to your home to perform for you and your friends. You choose the genre you want, you set the date, and you can choose musical acts based on your budget, and then send personalized invites to your family and friends. No, we aren’t selling you a great start-up idea. We’re telling you about one that already exists.
Say hello to Chipili, an Indo-French venture where whether you’re an artist or love going to concerts or both, Chipili can help you manage and organize your events with a few clicks of a mouse. We got to speak with Irfan Khan, Business and Global Strategy for Chipili, about this exciting new undertaking. Here’s what he had to share:
1) Where did the idea for Chipili come from?
Irfan: Chipili started off in Europe in 2014 and then we realized that the idea was also gaining a lot of traction in India. The idea has always been to provide people with intimate concert experiences where customers are able to choose the kind of music they want to listen to and are also exposed to new sounds and artists. Therefore it provides a platform for music to grow on both the consumer and musician side.
Now, the actual idea for Chipili took root when we organized a birthday party for a friend and it was a huge success owing to the fact that we had a musician come over to play the sort of music the birthday boy liked best.
2) What sort of reception has Chipili seen?
Irfan: Honestly, the reception at home has been picking up slowly but steadily. The main hindrance with getting people to accept Chipili has been that they usually expect the musicians to come over to play cover songs, while we’re trying to expose the audience to live music and encourage them to pursue upcoming genres.
But, once people get used to the idea and find the music that gets them going, they love having access to a platform like Chipili. Recently, we arranged for musicians to play at a CEO’s birthday party. He loved the jazz and blues, and so we sent over a three-piece jazz band and yes, it was the perfect choice.
3) Chipili caters to a wide audience with varying music preferences. How do you source your artists to cater to such extensive tastes?
Irfan: We started off with musicians who performed in English as that would gratify a huge amount of our customers. Recently we’ve diversified to Carnatic musicians and beatboxers, and we want to one day have musicians representing each state in India and varied genres of music that come with it.
Funnily, having musicians come over and perform in houses is not an alien concept to Indians. Weddings and other traditional rituals mandated having pied pipers and tabla players performing. What we’re trying to do is revitalize this tradition and broaden the whole spectrum of entertainment available at homes.
4) Why do you think it is important to have this sort of platform? How do you think it’ll impact the art scene?
Irfan: Obviously, the first thing is that Chipili is definitely going to help bring up and sustain musicians and artists. The other important thing is, the average listener today already has a set music taste and don’t really venture beyond their preferences. At Chipili new artists and new sounds will constantly engage the audience.
New types of music in India usually die an unsung death as they just don’t receive the chance to survive. Chipili aims to provide an incentive to artists to continually redefine their sound and an audience base to hear it. Prices start as low as Rs.5000 and it is easy to get together a few friends to pool for a day of great live music right in your home.
5) Other than musicians, what other types of artists does Chipili feature?
Irfan: Chipili also features theater artists and poets. We want to provide customers with the option of having people come over to perform monologues, dialogues, and even mime. It’s not just about being able to book a band of Chipili but to have access the whole range of performing arts out there.
Like I said before, at Chipili we want you to experience music or theater at this intimate level where the performers are only two feet away from you and it is in the comfort of your own home. The artists can talk to you about the history and you experience these arts not as an audience but as someone included in the narrative.
6) How do you see Chipili growing as a concept in the next couple of months?
Irfan: Right now, we’re looking forward to the months of October to December, basically holiday months where we can make more audiences aware of Chipili and what it offers. We want to get a lot more people to accept this concept where they are living an experience and not just hiring a band off the internet.
Check out their website and have your favorite musicians performing their best tunes this weekend.
Written by Preethi Sagar
Featured image credit: Véronique Cesbron
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