India's live entertainment market revolution
September 2024
Today, Coldplay concert tickets sold out in record time, with over 1,000,000 people waiting in Book My Show’s digital queue for the lottery. For context, that’s ₹700 crore worth of tickets!
Similarly, we saw the same demand when Dua Lipa’s concert sold out within minutes, and Diljit’s concert tickets were gone in just 30 SECONDS on Zomato.
Here’s my take on this booming live entertainment market:
This massive demand for live events clearly reflects an increase in disposable income across the nation.
In a country like India, with its huge youth population, 30,000–40,000 seating capacity venues simply aren’t enough.
Zomato has perfectly timed its entry into this rapidly growing business, which has the potential to generate billions. Today, Book My Show holds a 55% market share in live entertainment, with PayTM Insider covering the other 45%. With its acquisition of PayTM Insider, Zomato has entered duopoly in a highly promising space. I predict that in 2-3 years, Zomato will surpass Book My Show and become the top player in live entertainment.
Food and entertainment go hand in hand, and Zomato understands this better than anyone. They have tested this FOOD <> Entertainment phenomenon for a few years now in the form of Zomaland, Zomato’s annual food and entertainment festival. What started as a pure food festival has seamlessly evolved to include live entertainment. With District, they are going to go all in this biz.
Zomato is truly a founder-mode company, and Deepinder Goyal is leading the charge.
However, platforms must keep a close eye on the resale of tickets, which are often sold at inflated prices. They should introduce strict regulations and innovative features to tackle black-market reselling.
(This is part of my “writing to understand” practice, and since I keep coming back to this platform even when I shouldn’t, why not use it for this?)
Signing off till next one,
Dinesh, decided to work from home on a busy Monday.