the goan I network
PANAJI
The President of Travel and Tourism Association of Goa (TTAG), Savio Messias, has said that it is not a good idea to have 2 electronic-dance-music (EDM) festivals in the State due to lack of infrastructure and shortage of venues.
On Monday, Tourism Minister Manohar Ajgaonkar had said that the state government was open to the idea of having 2 EDMs in Goa in 2020.
Messias said, “We’re struggling to do one EDM properly. There were massive traffic jams in North Goa due to Sunburn Klassique. It’s not a good idea to hold 2 EDMs.”
Ajgaonkar had also said that the hoteliers from South Goa were keen to have a music festival there.
To this, Messias said that South Goa does not have infrastructure and even venues to hold an event of this scale.
“With the work happening on the bridge, it is not possible to hold an EDM in South Goa. Besides, roads are narrower in South compared to North,” Messias added.
In 2015, both Sunburn and Supersonic happened in Goa exactly on the same dates. As a result, there were more tourists in the State than the infrastructure could handle.
Then, for few years in between, not a single EDM happened.
Meanwhile, the tourism industry had always maintained that doing two EDMs at the same time is a bad idea.
Early in 2019, Sunburn returned to Goa as Sunburn Klassique and now Ajgaonkar is talking about doing two EDMs in a year.
Tourism stakeholders further criticised the government for not having a clear calendar of events.
A source said, “At the beginning of every year, we need to know when the Seafood Festival and Wine Festival will happen. We need to know when EDMs will happen. As of now, we only know when Carnival will happen because it can only happen on fixed dates due to its nature.”
