The Mahindra Sanatkada Lucknow Festival is a festival with an artisan-first approach. It provides a platform to more than 140 artisans and craftspeople to showcase their skills and heritage, many of which are vanishing and urgently need awareness and action for revival and sustainability.

Walks and tours are a significant part of our festival. Taking participants through vital tangible and intangible aspects of Awadh, our walks and tour experiences range from architecture (Francisi Awadhi Ta'alluqaat, Lucknow ke Rehaa’ish), to people (Feminists of Awadh pe Salaam, Begum Akhtar Hazari), to art (Husn-e-Karigari Walk). These walks serve as engaging mediums that sensitise participants to the heritage that has prevailed in the past and continues to live in the present. Our Lazzat Ek Khaas food and heritage experiences offer a glimpse into the culinary lifestyles of Lucknow and the qasbas of Awadh.

Food is one of the key components of MSLF. We aim to revive and present traditional home-cooked recipes of Awadh that have been intimate parts of Awadhi homes, passed down through generations. Our Awadhi Home Cooked Food Festival is one such initiative that celebrates Lucknow’s culinary inheritance as it lives within homes and families. In this we invite home cooks from the Lucknow region and present more than 40 dishes, allowing guests to experience this essential aspect of the Awadhi lifestyle.

MSLF also provides a stage for artistic talent through the Amrit Lal Nagar Stage for myriad artistic expressions. The stage also hosts the much-awaited Seher, the annual dawn concert held on winter mornings. This year, the concert will feature a refined jugalbandi by two eminent exponents of Hindustani classical music: Ustad Irfan Md. Khan, a well-known sarod player, and Ustad Ilmas Husain Khan of the Lucknow Gharana on tabla. Our literary stage, Naseem Iqtidar Ali Literary Guftgu hosts scholars and intellectuals across . This year, the stage will host Nobel Laureate Abhijit Banerjee.

In addition to this, we strive to make the festival accessible and safe for people from all backgrounds, across age, gender, and class. Medical access, including a dedicated desk for medical emergencies, ambulance facilities, and first-aid services, is available throughout the festival.

Sustainability remains a core value. We are a zero-waste festival committed to responsible waste generation and management. We actively promote a no-plastic policy, and all our décor and festival infrastructure is created using natural materials such as fabric, bamboo, and wood. We collaborate with waste management companies like Skrap to ensure waste is carefully segregated into wet and dry categories and disposed of responsibly.

Check out other multiarts festivals here.