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DREAM VALLEY

Enchanted Valley Carnival is an EDM festival set in a stunning valley in India...

Offering a free-and-easy haven for Western hippies and spiritualists during the late '80s especially, Goa (and its psy-trance scene) is no longer India's busiest place for electronic music. Seduced by the glittery allure of EDM and all it has to offer, inner city clubs in Mumbai and Delhi have come alive in recent years. Dance sounds — boosted by social media — are spreading like wild fire throughout circles of wealthy youngsters all over the nation.

Bookers are paying over the odds to attract the world's biggest names and light shows are getting ever more impressive as India's rich and famous cram themselves into the VIP areas of their favourite, most glamourous hang-outs — not to mention those prestigious private parties. Forget bonkers Bollywood dance routines, Indian clubbing is booming and it's showing no signs of letting up.

Festivals too have embraced the EDM dream — and don't expect subtlety. Goa's Sunburn has been going strong since 2007, Armin's A State of Trance has also visited Mumbai and Enchanted Valley Carnival, set within the gorgeous surrounds of Sahyadri Hills (Ambay Valley City, Pube), was just one of a string of start-up events last year.

Taking place over two nights in December (19th – 21st), EVC returns again this year with David Guetta headlining the Saturday and Ferry Corsten and Markus Schulz as New World Punx on Sunday. Last year's event bore witness to Martin Garrix, ATB, Cosmic Gate, Bassjackers and Gabriel & Dresden, to name only a few, alongside homegrown talent like Ankytrixx and Anish Shood, and a similar calibre is expected to spill across the site's four impressive stages again this year.

Expecting a footfall of about 12-15,000 people each day with up to 2,000 campers, EVC is envisioned as an immersive EDM experience where a carnival atmosphere crosses into the spellbinding spectacle of an enormous event like Ultra. With more eyes than ever before on the Indian dance market, scoping out new, unused locations, EVC is setting a precedent that will without doubt be followed again, and again.