India Nightlife Convention & Awards (INCA) 2019
Mumbai, September 20, 2019: The Fourth Edition of India Nightlife Convention & Awards (INCA) 2019 was held at The St. Regis, Mumbai on September 18 & 19. Since 2016, INCA in association with National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI) has been arguably the single largest platform that recognizes the best in the nightlife industry.
The two-day Convention & Awards ceremony kick-started on September 18 with a grand inauguration in the presence of 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 NRAI and Rahul Singh – Founder & CEO of The Beer Café. Heineken being the principle sponsor this year, in association with Chivas, the two-day convention and awards was nothing less than spectacular.
This year, the 2 day event included a workshop on mixology trends, masterclass on nightlife, presentation on Nightlife Advocacy by Mirik Milan and Lutz Leichsenring from VibeLab. There was also a series of panel discussions, which were relevant, engaging and thought provoking, viz. Safe Nightlife, Responsible Drinking and Logging Out. Each session saw total equal participation from the panelists and the audience. The Safe Nightlife panel in particular was well received, with the BMC Commissioner Mr. Praveen Pardeshi sharing his perspective on this pertinent and sensitive subject. The Logging Out session also saw great participation from the audience, with Mr. Anurag Katriar, Mr. Rahul Singh, Mr. Riyaaz Amlani and Mr. Priyank Sukhija educating the people about how the deep discounting schemes being offered are detrimental to the nightlife and hospitality industry.
Each day, the convention was followed by the grand award ceremony to recognize the best in the nightlife industry. On the first day, the winners at the city level were handed over the certificates. Day two saw eminent personalities from the world of music & entertainment like Arjan Bajwa, Kim Sharma, Suleiman Merchant, Tejaswini Kolkapure, Shibani Dandekar and Leslie Lewis give way the awards to the National winners.
This year, INCA also recognized the immense influence of two stalwarts of hospitality and nightlife industry – Henry Tham and Shatbhi Basu with a special honour for their contribution.
The leaders of the industry came out in full support of this unique initiative by Kickstart Entertainment, and was attended by the pioneers of the hospitality and nightlife industry such as AD Singh – Olive Group, Gurpreet Singh – United Breweries Ltd, Priyank Sukhija (MD and CEO of First Fiddle F&B Pvt. Ltd) Nikhil Chinapa, Chef Alexis Gielbaum, Chef Amninder Sandhu, Rachel Goenka and Prashant Issar to name a few.
Eminent personalities from around the world such as Mr. Ramon de Lima, Mr. Camilo Ospina Guzman, Mr. David Lopez, Ms. Nino Brown, Mr. Hayan Abou Assali, Ms. Anya and more especially travelled to Mumbai and brought their perspective of the nightlife industry from across the world to benefit the Indian nightlife scenario.
The National Level awards ceremony was followed by a grand dinner and exclusive performance by renowned DJ Akhtar which was an apt way to celebrate nightlife.
