NH7 Weekender is an annual, multi-city and multi-genre, music and comedy festival held in India. It is created by Only Much Louder (OML) and is among the largest South Asian arts festivals. It began in Pune, Maharashtra, India, as a three-day, multi-genre, music festival in 2010. Since 2012 it has expanded to multiple cities. In 2017, the lineup added comedy. Its title sponsor has been Bacardi since inception. The festival is held between October and December, and hosted in multiple cities alongside its flagship event in Pune. Delhi NCR, Bengaluru, Kolkata, Hyderabad, and Shillong have host the festival. The lineup includes a mix of, established and emerging, sub-continental and global artists. History In 2006, Vijay Nair, the co-founder and ex-CEO of OML, began formulating the idea of an Indian multi-genre music festival modeled after the Glastonbury where he had taken Pentagram in 2005. In 2009 he met UK music manager Stephen Budd in Mumbai and they discussed the idea of creating an independent music festival. Nair came to London where Budd introduced him to Glastonbury booker Martin Elbourne and the three subsequently planned and financed the first NH7 Weekender. The debut festival was held in Pune, in 2010, and was produced by OML. It was a three-day festival, had a multi-stage setup and was multi-genre. It was headlined by international artists Asian Dub Foundation, The Magic Numbers, and Reverend and The Makers, along with well established Indian acts including Lounge Piranha, Junkyard Groove, Zero, and Demonic Resurrection. In 2012 the festival expanded to two cities and alongside Pune added, multi stage and day, festivals in Delhi and Bangalore. Since then, the festival has been held in Kolkata, Meghalaya, Hyderabad and Shillong with smaller, single day, festivals in Mysore, Jaipur, Nagpur and other cities. In 2017, after OML's foray in the comedy business, the festival added a comedy lineup after having previously booked acts like All India Bakchod and Vir Das for musical performances. The festival is one of the first large scale music festivals in the South Asian sub-continent. Its programming is a mix of Indian independent acts, younger sub-continental artists, and multi-genre international headliners. Initially stages were broadly divided by genres: rock and metal, electronic, and indie and folk. Each stage had two platforms: main and transition, with alternated performances. Over the past few years, the festival has ditched genre stages and headliners perform on the Bacardi Arena main