Mizoram band Terat wins Ticket to Hornbill 2026, will play at Kisama

Terat, a band from Mizoram, has won the third edition of Ticket to Hornbill, the band contest run by the Nagaland government, and will perform at the Hornbill Music Festival at Kisama in December, Hub News reported on Sunday.

The grand finale was held at Talkatora Stadium in New Delhi on November 6. Terat finished ahead of 221 bands that had entered the contest, which its organisers bill as India's biggest band battle.

Prize money and runners-up

Steel Falcon from Bengaluru came second and Nchanter from Uttarakhand third. All three bands will play at the Hornbill Music Festival at Kisama, near Kohima, which runs from December 1 to 10.

Terat received Rs 10 lakh in prize money. Steel Falcon got Rs 6 lakh and Nchanter Rs 4 lakh. Prizes worth another Rs 5 lakh, sponsored by Furtados and Sennheiser, went to winners of individual categories, and Casio India sponsored the prizes for the winning bands.

Twelve bands played in the preliminary round, and five of them made it to the final, where they competed for the top three places. The judges were Subir Malik, founder of the rock band Parikrama; Arpito Gope, chief consultant to the Task Force for Music and Arts (TaFMA); and Mayank Mittal, frontman of the comic rock band KAPOW.

Why the final moved to Delhi

This was the first time the contest was held outside Nagaland. TaFMA chairman Theja Meru said the national capital was chosen to put Nagaland's music scene in front of a wider audience, and because it was more accessible, cheaper and easier for touring bands. The large Naga community living in Delhi was another reason, he said.

The contest was organised by the Nagaland Tourism Department with TaFMA and with support from the Union Ministry of Tourism.

Music as identity

Nagaland Tourism Secretary Nchumbemo Lotha said music meant far more than entertainment for the Nagas, describing it as a way of telling stories, keeping history alive, expressing identity and holding communities together.

He said the Hornbill Festival had grown into one of the country's best-known cultural and tourism events, bringing the state's tribes together on one stage. The government wants visitors to see Nagaland as a place worth exploring all year round, not only during the 10-day festival, he added, and said that would need artistes, entrepreneurs, hotels, communities and private partners to work together.

Lotha described Ticket to Hornbill as part of the state's effort to take its cultural and creative identity to a national audience, linking music, young people, entertainment and tourism.