Sunburn Music Festival has just ended, while India was still in the hangover of the U2’s concerts in Mumbai! Diverse as the nation is in terms of religion, language and states, it is also one of the most famous hosts of the international rockstars. Here, the songs of Kishore Kumar, Arijit Singh and Lata Mangeshkar and Sunidhi Chauhan are as famous and loved as that of Ed Sheeran, Coldplay, Chainsmokers, JB, and so on.
Since last year, India has hosted the most popular singers and bands from the overseas – the most recent are Irish rockstars- Justin Bieber, Ed Sheeren, Katty Perry, Coldplay and Bryan Adams. These concerts were reverberating with the audience, flashlights and enthusiasm. The country that is essentially Bollywood-crazy, why is it gaining popularity among the international singers and performers who now frequently land here to conduct their concerts? BBC news has an answer for us.
According to BBC news, more than 40,000 people attended U2’s concert in the financial capital of India. Besides, the rockstars themselves want to perform here. As Arthur Fogel from Live Nation says, More and more artists are asking about coming to India for performance and so there is no question that there are more shows coming in the offing.
No doubt, the youth in India is increasingly grooving on the beats of international music. But is that the only reason?
According to Ashish Hemrajaini from BookMyShow, “India cannot be ignored anymore. It has one of the largest youth population in the world. It is one of the last bastions, after North America and Europe. If you want to make your next base of hundreds and millions of consumers and you want to tour the market, get your music to these consumers, India has the market for this.”
Is the Bollywood-crazy India ready to have these many concerts and on such large scales?
Analyzing the average annual income of the families in India, Karishma Bhalla, Boston Consulting Group, told BBC News that it is on an increase with every decade by about 1.5 per cent. In fact, in the coming decade, the average annual income will grow by another 1.5 per cent. She further said that people are not only willing to consume it through products but also through experiences.
While this explains the crowd of people with enthusiasm flocking to the concerts, it cannot be denied that holding such big concerts in India is challenging, as far as its fluctuating economy is concerned.
Hemrajaini says, In India, organizing live events becomes challenging because of the infrastructure and taxation. We tend to overspend on the infrastructure of these events. And the taxations for the live events, on the other hand, is extremely high, at about 28 per cent. If these two issues are well addressed, organizing these events will be a viable business. This will become rock-solid, high growth, high frequency, high margin contribution to the business in the coming years.
