The party season is almost upon us, and while Hyderabad’s nightlife has been picking up lately, there are still many who prefer stepping out of the city.
People fly down for the numerous EDM gigs that take place here, the same can’t be said for the December-January period. The reason? Hyderabad’s nightlife still needs to catch up with Mumbai, Bengaluru, Pune and other cities.
Venkat K.C., manager of a local pub, says, “With the kind of events we’re doing, the city has seen people coming in, especially from 2014 onwards. But we still need to do a lot more to keep people partying in the city — we hardly get five per cent of the response we’re really expecting.”
Deepti Alapati, an avid party-goer from the city thinks that the reason for that is the fact that the culture of partying itself still needs to mature. “You don’t want to stay in the one place and spend the New Year Eve’s at the same place every year. Here, people are out partying not really for the love of music but just because it’s an outing or a social event for them,” she says.
“Audiences are scattered — on any given day there will be different venues having different events, and people from around those places will prefer to go there. At the end of the day, each will have a small market share and none of the gigs will really be rocking,” says city-bred DJ Murthovic, adding, “There has to be a coming together of people, just for cultural and social awareness in terms of music, performing arts and more.”
While the argument of other cities being more “cosmopolitan” is strife, event organiser and businessman Vijay Amritraj thinks that Hyderabad’s nightlife did have its glory days almost a decade ago.
“Even in 2006-07, we were better than Bengaluru. The influx, mix of people and vibrancy of the crowd was so strong. Post the split of the state, there was a lull, so it disappeared. But now, you see the roots of it taking place in the past one or two years. With the EDM gigs, there’s a whole new category of people coming in which is refreshing.”
