Bollywood keeps Queen Victoria Park bouncing for iMela Festival
The sounds of Bhangra and Bollywood filled Queen Victoria Park for the fifth annual iMela Festival Sunday.
About 25 performers, most of them local, played to thousands of people gathered on a sweltering long weekend. Music started at 3 p.m. and continued until about 11 p.m.
The colourful event included a movie night for families Saturday, screening “Toy Story” and “Slumdog Millionaire.”
Singers at the event have included top Punjabi performer Gill Hardepp and rising star Geeta Zaildar from Brampton.
Festival founder Baljinder Tamber of Brampton-based Virasat Media says it’s a genre of music seeping more and more into pop culture because of its infectious energy.
“It’s very energetic, it’s vibrant, it’s live,” he says. “And it’s growing in the mainstream media.”
With a budget of $160,000 paid mainly through sponsors, the free event has found an ideal home in Niagara Falls, adds Tamber. He has organized festivals in several countries and keeps coming back to Canada’s hospitality.
“Canada has given us so much, so I always want to give it back,” he says. “From that, I said, ‘Why don’t we give (a free festival) to somebody who can’t afford it while they come to Niagara Falls?’
“So what’s happening now is, people from Winnipeg, people from U.S.A., they call me (and say), ‘We want to arrange a picnic around the festival.’ They’re going to come here anyhow, so they come on the same weekend.”
Virasat Media previously organized the Bhangra at the Falls dance competition in 2013 and 2015, attracting about 35,000 people.