Metro Vancouver's South Asian Music Festival Brings Back The Bhangra Beat
by The Daily Eye Team June 16 2017, 4:41 pm Estimated Reading Time: 0 mins, 57 secsAfter a successful start in Vancouver last year, the City of Bhangra Festival is expanding in all the right places. “We are now in the heart of the community that we are speaking to,” says festival artistic director Tarun Nayar about adding Surrey, which boasts a huge, growing South Asian diaspora, as an event location. Put on by the Vancouver International Bhangra Celebration (VIBC), the six-day festival of Bhangra (Punjabi folk arts) runs deep with 350 performers, including international ‘EDM’ superstar Nucleya turning up the volume on the electronic dance music floor. “I think it is only a matter of time that this music festival gets to a level where it is competing with mainstream festivals. Especially in this part of the country,” says Asad Khan, aka DJ Khanvict, who will be playing the festival. Khan runs Decibel Entertainment, a Surrey-based DJ company that sends DJs to jobs around the world. He and his team of 16 DJs are in huge demand for weddings and parties but he says a festival like City of Bhangra offers a chance to creatively cut loose.