Goafest 2026 concluded on a high note on its third day with a compelling blend of inspiring conversations, thought-provoking reflections, live entertainment, and celebrations of creative excellence. The second half of the day brought together iconic voices from advertising, entertainment, and media, while continuing to spotlight the evolving role of creativity, bravery, and cultural relevance in shaping the future of the communications industry.

The afternoon commenced with Affle Presents Live Entertainment in association with Sakal Media Group, featuring an electrifying performance by Neeti Mohan, Bollywood Singing Diva. The high-energy performance brought together delegates, industry leaders, and creators for a vibrant celebration of music and entertainment, adding to the festive spirit of Goafest 2026.

Building on the momentum of the day was an impactful session titled ‘Resetting for Growth: Why Bravery Is the Only Real Strategy’, powered by MakeMyTrip. The session featured Eugene Cheong, Creative Director & Partner, Euge Publishing, who shared his perspectives on the evolving creative landscape and highlighted why courage, experimentation, and unconventional thinking are becoming increasingly critical for brands and agencies navigating a rapidly changing world.

“Indian advertising became a global creative force through bravery, risk-taking, and creative conviction – not safety or optimisation. Eugene Cheong argued that agencies are becoming overly process-driven ‘asset delivery businesses,’ where creativity is being suppressed by layers of approvals, bureaucracy, and operational structures. He pointed out that the traditional agency model was built on 10 percent breakthrough global work, 20 percent strong culturally impactful work, and 70 percent repetitive execution-heavy business — a layer now rapidly disappearing because of AI, automation, and in-housing.

According to him, the future belongs to agencies driven by talent, courage, intuition, authenticity, and original thinking, because AI can automate execution, but it cannot replicate human creative instinct,” Eugene Cheong addressed the quorum.

Another major highlight of the evening was ‘Age of Outrage’ — the AAAI Subhas Ghosal Memorial Lecture, powered by Eenadu. The lecture was delivered by Santosh Desai, Founder & Director, Think9 Consumer Technologies Pvt Ltd., Author, Columnist, Social Commentator. He further engaged in an interesting fireside chat with Anuraddha SenGupta, an independent journalist and producer.

Reflecting on how advertising helped shape today’s outrage-driven attention economy while simultaneously losing its own cultural relevance, Santosh said, “Today’s world is the ‘Age of Outrage,’ where algorithms reward emotional reactions over thought, making outrage the most powerful emotional currency online. Advertising itself helped create this ecosystem by shifting from selling products to selling identity and teaching people to define themselves through choices, preferences, and rejection.

“While the world has never needed storytelling more, advertising buried creativity under bureaucracy, processes, and award culture just as creators and digital platforms mastered the very storytelling techniques the industry originally invented.”

The festival also featured a keynote session by Adam Izen, Chief Awards Officer – One Show, who shared insights into global creative benchmarks, evolving industry standards, and the growing importance of impactful storytelling and innovation in shaping award-winning work across markets.

Emphasizing the future of advertising will belong to agencies driven by creativity, courage, and original thinking rather than operational scale alone, Adam said, “Indian advertising became a global creative force because of bravery, risk-taking, and creative conviction – not safety, optimisation, or bureaucracy. Agencies today have become overly dependent on processes, approvals, and operational structures, while AI is rapidly eliminating repetitive execution-heavy work that once made up nearly 70 percent of the traditional agency business.

“The future belongs to agencies driven by talent, creativity, and instinct, because AI cannot replicate human qualities like courage, curiosity, intuition, authenticity, and persistence that truly shape creative excellence.”

Adding a lighter yet deeply insightful dimension to the day’s agenda was News18 Presents ‘Yeh Dhurandhar Zindagi – Resetting to Stay Relevant’ in association with Amar Ujala. The session featured veteran actor Rakesh Bedi in conversation with Anand Narasimhan, Managing Editor, Spl Projects & Senior Anchor, CNN News18. The engaging conversation reflected on longevity, reinvention, and staying culturally relevant across generations in an ever-evolving entertainment landscape.

Reflecting on the overall journey, Bedi emphasized, “Fame today spreads much faster because platforms and audience reach have evolved drastically compared to earlier times. Rakesh Bedi spoke about following his passion for acting despite preparing for engineering, saying life should be lived through risks, mistakes, and experiences rather than excessive caution. He shared that while performing any character, he tries to completely forget ‘Rakesh Bedi’ and deeply study human behaviour, emotions, and body language – because both actors and poets ultimately observe life before expressing it creatively.”

In addition to the keynote sessions and panel discussions, Day 3 also featured a session on Resetting Bharat: Rewriting Growth Beyond Urban Playbooks by Rajiv Dubey, Vice President, Media & Marketing Activations, Dabur India Limited.

“Communication today is hyper-personalised, mobile-first and increasingly driven by regional culture, as the gap between India and Bharat continues to reduce through smartphones, internet access and digital payments,” Rajiv Dubey said, while emphasizing that consumers across metros, tier 2, and tier 3 cities now share similar aspirations, making behaviour and intent more important than geography in marketing.

“While AI, data, and deterministic targeting are becoming central to advertising strategy”, he stressed that emotional storytelling, cultural understanding, and “brand soul remain equally critical alongside scale and technology.”

Following this was another session titled ‘Rewiring the Mind: Why Fearless Creativity Wins’ by Ashish Khazanchi, Managing Partner, Enormous, where he strongly emphasized that breakthrough creativity comes from conviction, risk-taking, and deep consumer understanding rather than safe, process-driven advertising.

 “One of the biggest reasons bold ideas never get executed is because teams start second-guessing clients, bosses, and market reactions before the work is even made. Safe advertising may sustain brands, but extraordinary impact comes from taking risks and challenging category conventions, Khazanchi argued adding that digital media has reduced the cost of failure, allowing brands to experiment more freely, while truly strong creativity comes from understanding consumers, culture, and behaviour deeply, because strategy is ultimately an informed opinion, not an exact science.

The evening then transitioned into one of the festival’s most anticipated celebrations — the ABBY Awards 2026 Powered by The One Club | The One Show.

Snapchat Presents Abby One Show Awards Powered by Z5 & Mediakart celebrated outstanding creative excellence across a wide range of categories including Video Craft, Audio & Radio, Social Content & Influencer Marketing, Creative Commerce, Use Of Data, B2B, Branded Content & Entertainment, Brand Experience & Activation, Outdoor, Print, Still Digital, Audio-Visual TV, Audio-Visual, Digital & OTT (Below 1 min & Above 1 min), and Integrated campaigns.

The awards recognised groundbreaking ideas, impactful storytelling, and innovative execution from across India’s advertising, media, and marketing ecosystem.

The celebrations continued late into the night with Z Presents Gala Dinner in association with Z5. This was followed by Mediakart Presents After Hours Party Powered by B4U featuring DJ Ganesh, Celebrity DJ.