Sunburn: Why Asia’s biggest electronic dance music festival still doesn’t have a venue

Tickets are already on sale and the festival is supposed to be just over two months away, but organisers for Sunburn 2024 are facing stiff opposition from locals in Goa who fear it will bring drugs, noise pollution and environmental damage. Shahana Yasmin reports

Sunburn festival (Sunburn Festival/Instagram)

When Asia’s biggest electronic dance music (EDM) festival announced that its 2024 edition will return to India’s picturesque beach destination of Goa, the local community was alarmed.

Started by Indian entrepreneur Shailendra Singh, the Sunburn Festival has been a staple for EDM enthusiasts over the past 17 years. Held every year in the western Indian state since its first edition in 2007, Sunburn shifted to Pune in Maharashtra in 2016, amid quiet but steady rumblings of opposition from Goans.

By then its position among the international music and festival circuit was cemented as CNN named Sunburn in its list of the top 12 music festivals in the world, one that also included Glastonbury.

The first edition was headlined by acts like Carl Cox, Above & Beyond and Axwell, and Sunburn went on to bring the likes of Armin Van Buuren, Tiesto, David Guetta, Skazi, Swedish House Mafia, and Roger Sanchez. According to Percept, the entertainment, media and communications company that owns Sunburn, 350,000 attended the festival in 2015, with numbers holding steady in every successive edition.

After holding the festival in Goa’s Vagator beach in 2022 and 2023, Sunburn announced in July that its 2024 edition would be a three-day extravaganza from 28 to 30 December, held at a yet-unannounced location in the south of the state.

Almost immediately, the Goan community – those who were born in Goa and had grown up there and ones had moved there in search of a quieter life – was up in arms.

Citizens gathered to protest, afraid that the quiet and sanctity of its scenic beaches would be ruined by loud noise, unchecked drug use by some concertgoers, and destruction of the natural ecosystem. Many who had witnessed the debris left behind in the aftermath of the festival in the north of the state, were emphatic in their refusal to allow it to return.

“First, they finished North Goa. Now they want to come here to finish South Goa as well,” a woman protester told Goan daily O Heraldo.

This year, residents held a candle march on India’s Independence Day on 15 August to complain about clubs dotting the beaches that routinely flout noise pollution norms with deafening music that can be heard up to 4km away.

“We don’t get sleep at night. The noise pollution is particularly challenging for my son, who suffers from seizures and autism. He needs a quiet environment to sleep and recover from his seizure attacks, but the constant clanging and banging from the nearby clubs and hotels make it difficult for him to get the rest he needs. In fact, there are three clubs just behind my house, which are less than a kilometre away,” said resident Janie Crasto.

Along with concerns about environmental degradation and intrusion into the sanctity of south Goa, locals have questioned the statement that Sunburn is meant to promote Goa as a tourist destination (AFP via Getty Images)

In December 2023, a local court sought a detailed report from the state chief secretary over the higher-than-permissible noise levels during Sunburn 2022. The Goa state pollution board found that the ambient noise levels along the coastal belt “regularly exceeded the maximum permitted 55 decibels”, according to Hindustan Times.

“Sunburn was, for several years, the ‘cool’ festival, bringing a certain quality of musicians and in turn, attracting a global audience, and therefore a good way to showcase the destination,” Goa resident Siddharth Savkur tells The Independent.

“But over the last few years, its perception has deteriorated sharply – it’s now associated with chaos, poor planning, drug abuse, issues with law and order, poor garbage management. So when the festival itself doesn’t have that same allure, what does it do for Goa?

“If the festival is meant to benefit Goa financially, why host it when it’s peak tourist season for Goa? If you’re pitching this festival right between Christmas and New Year, which is literally the last window in the year that Goa needs marketing, how does the argument that we’re doing this to promote the destination hold?” he says.

Further to legal disputes on sound pollution and a court order that said government permission for Sunburn 2022 was illegally granted, the festival also has unpaid dues it owes to the community that owns that land where the Sunburn music festival was held. 

“We have not received payment of Rs 3.8m (£34,477) of the previous year and last year’s Rs 34m (£308,488) as they approached the Supreme Court and got the money frozen. We are happy if they have found another place, but pay us our dues,” says Dominic Pereira, president of Anjuna Comunidade.

The government has been upbeat in promoting Goa as a cultural and tourism destination. The Travel and Tourism Association of Goa (TTAG), an apex body representing the hotel and travel trade, issued a statement which said: “Sunburn has significantly boosted tourism in Goa and boosted the local economy. All over the world, events supplement the tourism economy. As a world-class musical event, we expect Sunburn to do the same in South Goa.”

Tickets have been on sale on Sunburn’s ticketing partner website BookMyShow for months. A note on the event page says “Venue to be announced: Goa”.

“The event is subject to government permission,” says another, but one can purchase tickets that start at Rs 2,500 (approximately £23) and go up to Rs 1,475,000 (£13,353) for a VVIP experience.

At the end of September, Sunburn’s social media announced that multiple Grammy-winner Skrillex was “on his way to SunburnGoa2024” – despite still not having a venue confirmed.

Goa’s attempts to protect its fragile ecosystem are not new – a group of West German package tourists were met with protesting locals way back in 1987, and the bus that was to transport them to their beach resorts were pelted with cow dung and rotten shrimp.

Goa, which has a population of around 1.46 million, has seen a massive rise in the number of tourists – going from around 5.2 million in 2015 to more than 8.5 million in 2023.

Palolem beach in Goa, India (Getty Images)

Merril Diniz, a writer from Goa, says locals complain that tourists looking for Instagram-worthy photos peek into historic Portuguese colonial-era homes, walk into private gardens, fly drones over homes without permission, and litter streets.

“They behave quite entitled about it when questioned. I’ve heard this complaint, often, from dwellers of the Fontainhas in Panjim, which has become an influencer hub. Consent does not seem to be a part of their lexicon, and perhaps we need more conversations to generate awareness,” she says. Fontainhas is often referred to as the “Latin Quarter” of state capital Panaji, famous for its Portugese-style architechture.

The Independent reached out to the organisers of Sunburn Festival, who declined to comment.