The Music Run™ by Fastrack in Bengaluru

Soo, today  ( 10th September, 2016) was the event that I have been involved with at my place of employment and after suppressing my dislike for large scale events, I attended it. Partly from a sense of personal involvement with the project, and partly the curiosity, as this was an International event that was making its Indian debut.

The Music Run™ basically is, as the tagline explains, "The Ultimate 5K Running & Music Festival". So, to elaborate, its a 5K run, followed by a music festival. Seems simple enough right? But there is one extra feature of this particular event. They pump music along the 5K course of the run, with about 100+ speakers, quite loudly I might add. To give it a bit of variation, the 5K is broken into 5 zones, each zone playing a certain genre of music. For added interaction and participation from fans and attendees and the internet, the playlist for each of the 5 zones of the 5K run, is voted for through an online voting platform. So, the people get to choose the songs, essentially. Get it now? Music Run.

Now, that also means that it's not a competitive run, more like a fun run, where you can walk and dance through the 5K course, enjoying the music and the various fun activities in each zone. While I was participating, I was also working, as I was there as part of the team of the office that employs me currently, but I still did get to experience all that the event had to offer.

So, the event followed the schedule, without much delay, which is surprising in India, to me. The gates opened at 3:30, at 4:30 there was a pre-run gig by a local rock band called "All The Fat Children", who gave an underappreciated but brilliant performance in the short time given to them. This was followed by a zumba warm-up session that I was quite happy to ignore and lined up for the run. The run itself, started off smoothly, considering the sheer number of people who came, and was on a scenic route through the residential lanes of the venue. Each zone had a special 'activity area' provided by the sponsor of each zone. Me and a colleague were capturing the experience of the run from the inside, as it happened, stopping whenever there was something interesting happening.

We walked through 80% of it I suppose, and ran the rest in gaps, covering what we could while also enjoying the run itself. Most of the people seemed to be enjoying the run, the activity zones, the general group participation dynamic in a fun-based event, that kinda stuff. I have to say, I too enjoyed the 5K, even with all the annoyingly happy people around me, and got a decent cardio out of it too.

Then came the Music Festival bit, which featured TWO artists, none of whose work I was familiar with. The first one, had a really long set, maybe about 2 and a half hours in total, and in my opinion, he was basically playing a playlist and not actually 'DJing' much if it at all. He and the Emcee worked great as hype men to get people constantly involved and jumping to the music, but essentially, it was the same EDM songs of various kinds I'd heard plenty of times, even as someone who doesn't attend parties. They were constantly throwing out trinkets into the crowd (foam fingers, glowsticks, wrist bands, etc. Think of it, there were a LOT of such giveaways from all the different sponsors all across the event. That probably helped them keep the engagement level high.) and the audience members would leap and claw the air trying to grab them, which to me revealed the pack-of-dogs reaction of a mob that I had always suspected of.

I may not enjoy the music, but I do like experiencing the bass from concert speakers, so I stood close enough to the stage for as long as I could bear the music. It wasn't too long before the playlist choice was too annoying for me and I walked off, spending the next 2 hours or so meandering about and hanging around with my colleagues. Finally the headline act came on stage, which I listened to from the far end of the event area, who performed for maybe 45 minutes max, and played tracks that were not that enjoyable for me, but at least there was genuine mixing and the music had some uniqueness to it making it much more entertaining than the earlier 120 minutes.

They wound up the main performance by 9, on the dot, as per the schedule and had wrapped it up with a colorful display of fireworks right after.

To sum it all up, the run was a lot of fun, delivering on all the promises. The music festival bit was very disappointing and I hope they get a better line up for future Music Runs in India. There were plenty of activities to keep the crowd engaged, and plenty of freebies. Would I attend another Music Run? Yes, but I'll only stay for the festival bit if they get a better line up. #LiveTheBeat