Day One of the 4th Edition of India Nightlife Convention & Awards (INCA) 2019

19^th September, Mumbai: The Fourth Edition of India Nightlife Convention & Awards (INCA) 2019 was held at The St. Regis, Mumbai. INCA has been celebrating the nightlife and hospitality industry in India since years through insightful panel discussion encouraging talents in the industry and an extravagant award ceremony recognizing the achievers of the year. With Heineken & Chivas being their principle sponsors for this year, they concluded the first day successfully.

This two-day Convention & Awards ceremony kick-started with a grand inauguration in the presence of Anil Anand, Shekhar Ramamurthy – MD of the United Breweries Ltd, Aman Anand – Co-founder of INCA & Director of Kickstart Entertainment, Riyaaz Amlani, CEO & MD of Impresario Entertainment & Hospitality and Co-founder of INCA, Anurag Katriar – Newly appointed President of National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI), Rahul Singh – Founder & CEO of The Beer Café, Fernando Pint – Co-founder of INCA and Nishant Jain – Pernod. They conducted the Lamp Lighting tradition that was followed by an address by Mr. Aman Anand, Mr. Riyaaz Amlani, Mr. Fernando Pinto, Mr. Anurag Katriar and Mr. Rahul Singh.

Day one of INCA 2019 included a series of intellectual panel discussions and a magnificent award ceremony to felicitate the best in the nightlife & hospitality industry in each city across the country. Endorsing the nightlife culture in India pioneers of the hospitality and nightlife industry such as AD Singh – Olive Group, Gurpreet Singh – United Breweries Ltd, Nikhil Chinapa, Divine, Chef Alexis Gielbaum, Nick Harrison, Rachel Goenka, Prashant Issar and more were seen.

Eminent personalities from around the world such as Mr. Mirik Milan, Mr. Lutz Leichsenring, Mr. Ramon de Lima, Mr. Camilo Ospina Guzman, Mr. David Lopez, Mr. Nino Brown and more especially traveled to Mumbai and brought their perspective of the nightlife industry from across the world to benefit the Indian nightlife scenario.

The moderators and panelists shared ideas and thoughts by way of various panel discussions through the day.

Panel 1: Responsible Drinking

This Capsule Panel discussion saw moderator Karina Aggarwal, renowned Alcobev writer with panelists Nishant Jain – Pernod, AD Singh – Olive Group, Gurpreet Singh – United Breweries Ltd and Rahul Singh – The Beer Café.

One on One: Music Festivals

This one on one discussion saw moderator Dev Bhatia, Managing Director at UnMute with panelists Nikhil Chinapa, Michiel from The Awakenings and Ruth.

Panel 2: Pop Up to Step Up

A discussion on how pop-up culture is helping underground ideas take flight in the industry, it saw Kenneth Lobo as the moderator with panelists Jai Anand - Milkman, Rana Ghose - Re-produce, Vivek Dudani – Social Offline and Mathieu Josso – Bhavishyvani.

Panel 3: Inclusive is the New Exclusive 

A talk on Article 377 saw Bhavnesh Sawhney as the moderator with panelists Nino Brown - Yes Yes Y'all Toronto, Monica Dogra - American Musician, Aditya Sharma from Absolut and Bhargavi Naidu from Heineken.

Panel 4: Capture the Right Beats

Giving insights into Music Programming 101, this panel saw moderators DJ Akhtar and DJ Clement with panelists DJ Akbar, DJ Aqueel, Priyank Sukhija - First Fiddle Restaurants, Ayushman Sinha and Arjun Shah.

The city-level winners saw some newcomers and surprises along with established favorites across the categories.