Music promoter Anas Alimi lives by the principle that everyone deserves to enjoy high- quality concerts.

Promoting and producing such concerts has been his passion since studying psychology at Yogyakarta State University (UNJ) more than 20 years ago.

“It all began from my hobby of watching concerts,” 39-year old Anas told The Jakarta Post.

“I have been watching concerts since 1996. Once I got a job, I saved some money to watch concerts in nearby countries, such as Singapore and Australia,” he said.

After graduating, Anas took on a number of jobs, including working as a journalist and in the creative department of a book publishing company.

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He was heavily exposed to the creative industry during his early working days, which gave him ideas on how to produce a dream concert.

“I once had the chance to watch an Andrea Bocelli concert in Tuscany, Italy. The setting was in an ancient Roman-period temple. The seats piles of rubble,” Anas said.

“Then it crossed my mind that in nearby Yogyakarta there was the Prambanan Temple, which was more majestic than the temple in Tuscany. I knew at the time that I wanted to hold an international-level concert at the Prambanan Temple,” he added.

Anas started his journey in the music promotion business by producing and promoting small gigs in Yogyakarta.

One of the big names Anas promoted in his early music promotion career was pop singer Glenn Fredly in 2002. Following this, Glenn became one of Anas’ main business partners and he has promoted numerous concerts for the pop star since then.

Several years later, he wanted to do more. He did not want watching concerts to be a privilege solely held by Jakartans. He wanted music to be enjoyed by people in all regions.

Anas said at the beginning it was a struggle to convince artists and sponsors to hold high-quality concerts outside the capital.

“I was not very well known, so people still doubted me. In addition, I was based in Yogyakarta, which made it even more difficult to convince big-name artists to work with me,” he said.

To convince artists and sponsors to work with him, Anas networked with art directors. The brainstorming sessions with them helped him come up with new and fascinating concert concepts and ideas. One of those ideas became a breakthrough for Anas’ career in the music promotion business.

“The breakthrough concept was the establishment of Trio Lestari, in which I put together three top male Indonesian singers — Glenn, Tompi and Sandhy Sandoro — in a group. I believed that by putting them together, we could attract a lot of female audience members who would definitely bring their partners too,” he said.

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Anas’ hunch about the concept turned out to be true. Trio Lestari’s debut concert was sold out and due to the group’s popularity, it went on a tour to 12 cities across the archipelago — each reaping success.

“I did not only provide singing performances during the Trio Lestari concerts. I also asked them to talk about current political and social issues during their performances. They just have the right chemistry and the audience really loves it when the three of them start doing talk shows in the middle of the concerts,” he said.

Anas also included a surprise element during the concerts by inviting several guest stars to perform without giving any prior notice to the audience.

“For Glenn’s 17th anniversary of music career anniversary concert, for example, there were eight guest stars who performed after Glenn’s performance and the audience were completely caught by surprise,” he said.

Throughout his career as a music promoter, Anas held concerts for big-name Indonesian artists in every province except in West Papua.

“To hold a concert in Papua is my next goal,” he said.

Following his successes of producing and promoting concerts for Indonesian artists in regions outside Jakarta, Anas began producing and promoting for foreign artists as well.

His first major success working with international artists was when he realized his lifelong dream of producing and promoting an international level concert event at Prambanan called the Prambanan Jazz Festival in 2015.

The challenge with foreign artists, he said, was convincing them to perform for people who lived outside Jakarta.

“They often ask how far the venue is from Jakarta and whether there is a direct flight from Singapore,” he said.

Anas said inviting foreign artists would not be a problem as long as he was able to convince them about reliable transportation, hotels and venues.

“What really is a challenge when dealing with foreign artists is maintaining smooth communications. There is also a possibility of force majeur, such as a travel warning, which we really cannot control,” he said.

Among foreign artists he has brought to Indonesia are Michael Learns To Rock and Air Supply. He admits that he focuses on foreign artists with long and established careers because they tend to have an already solid fan base in small cities in Indonesia.

“Old artists like Air Supply have a solid, established middleclass fan segment all across Indonesia. This is the market that I am working on when it comes to foreign artists,” he said.

Anas’ next project is a concert for Canadian pianist, producer and 16-time Grammy Award winner David Foster at the Grand Pacific Hall in Yogyakarta on April 6.

“There is going to be a lot of surprises presented by David for his fans in this concert,” he said with enthusiasm.

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