New gala to award best in India’s nightlife industry

Mumbai, June 2 (IANS) In an attempt to bring India’s nightlife industry together, Kickstart Entertainment and National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI) on Thursday announced the launch of India Nightlife Convention and Awards (INCA) 2016 to recognise various stakeholders of the country's growing nightlife industry.

The event, in association with Johnnie Walker, will be held on July 17 and July 18 at the St. Regis Hotel here, said a statement.

Bollywood actor and owner of LAP Arjun Rampal was the guest of honour along with DJ Akbar Sami, DJ Clement, Sabti Basu, Keenan Tham (Trilogy), Suved Lohia, Nicolo Morea (Elbo Room) and Sanjay Vazirani (Owner, Foodlinks India Pvt Ltd) for the announcement here.

Aman Anand, Director of Kickstart Entertainment, said: “The event will be a key forum for vendors to connect and develop a social network thereby helping them build their customer base”.

The idea behind conceptualising INCA is to support and uplift the bar and nightlife. The convention includes business and informational workshops with some of the industry’s most influential entrepreneurs with an aim to expand the presence of exhibitors and enhance the scope of mentorship program.

INCA 2016 will be a two-day business convention for attendees within the bar and the nightlife industry from across India encompassing business and informational workshops with the industry’s most influential entrepreneurs and business specialists.

Following the convention would be the awards ceremony.

INCA will be announcing the categories for the awards where participants from across the country stand a chance to compete against each other soon.

Carefully selected jury members from metro cities (Mumbai, Delhi, Pune, Goa, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad and Kolkata) will contribute towards finalising the entrants from their respective cities.

Concurrently, bars from across India have the opportunity to enroll themselves as well as the public can vote for their favourite nightspot.

An appointed national jury will then nominate the best under each of the categories. Also, these awards will be at a national level for the industry by the industry insiders.

The call for entry for all nightclubs, bars and lounges all over India, began on Thursday.