Panaji (Goa): While it is almost certain that a new dance-music festival will be held during the peak tourist season this December, Percept Live that introduced Electronic Dance Music festival to Goa through ‘Sunburn Goa’ is awaiting settlement of all issues with the Goa government, which was one main reason in shifted the venue to Pune last year.
“We want to come back to Goa but not until our issues are resolved. We have addressed our issues at the highest level and expect a resolution,” Chairman of Percept Live Harinder Singh said. He claimed that Sunburn is synonym to Goa but some issues with the local authorities forced them to shift the party venue out of Goa border last year.
On the other hand, the State government through Tourism Department has sent out a strong message to the organizers that it would be allowed to hold the fest on a condition that they pay pending dues of nearly Rs 4 crores to the Commercial Taxes and Goa Police.
The organizers of Sunburn and Supersonic (Viacom 18) were upset with the government’s decision during the previous stint of BJP-led government when then tourism minister Dilip Parulekar laid down some strict conditions. The state level permission committee of the government, during its meeting in 2015 had asked the organizers not to clash the event dates with each other (December 20-30) and that it should hold the EDMs either before December 15 or after January 15. Similarly, the organizers were also time and again reminded about paying the dues to the government that included Supersonic too.
As the two organizers moved out owing to the differences even as government in the present tenure remains adamant about payment of dues, a Gujarat-based firm has already proposed hosting Time Out 72 Hours festival at Vagator. Tourism Minister Manohar Ajgaonkar has hinted at granting the festival permission from December 27-29 this year.
Team TNV