India’s concert touring scene poised to ‘explode’

India is on the cusp of a live music revolution with the country’s touring scene tipped to “explode” in the near future by leading executives.

Coming on the heels of high-profile tours by Coldplay and Ed Sheeran, its emergence as a key touring market was further illustrated over the weekend with the third edition of Lollapalooza India.

Held from 8-9 March at Mumbai’s Mahalaxmi Racecourse, the festival featured performances from acts such as Green Day, Shawn Mendes, Glass Animals, Louis Tomlinson and Nothing But Thieves.

Tickets started at 5,999 rupees (€63) for the event, which was produced by India’s leading online entertainment platform BookMyShow, alongside Lollapalooza co-founder Perry Farrell and Live Nation’s C3 Presents.

Speaking at last month’s International Live Music Conference (ILMC) in London, Ashish Hemrajani, founder and CEO of Big Tree Entertainment Private Limited, which operates BookMyShow, outlined the potential of the market – predicting it will balloon “10x in the next five years”.

“I come from a country of 1.4 billion people,” he said. “It is the youngest demographic in the world under the age of 35. There are also 300 million Indians that speak English as the first language. Unlike in China, Spotify, Netflix and YouTube, all exist in India, and therefore kids growing up are exposed to same music universe.”

“India is on the cusp of becoming an essential destination for global musicians”

Hemrajani suggested festival slots can offer a useful precursor to full-scale tours of the country for international acts.

“It’s a great segue to come into a festival where you have 60,000 people and garner interest, so you know where you stand, and then come back for a tour a year or two later,” he said.

Kirk Sommer, global co-head of music at WME, which has brought acts including Coldplay, Dua Lipa and The Strokes to the region, also highlights the opportunity at play.

“Major venue investment is booming, and India will soon have world-class event spaces and financial opportunities to support international artists,” he tells local media. “It may take a few years, but India’s touring scene will soon explode.

“India’s music revolution is just beginning. With improvements in infrastructure and an expanding audience base, India is on the cusp of becoming an essential destination for global musicians, while simultaneously nurturing its own superstars.”

Indeed, Sommer stresses that spotting and developing domestic talent is an important part of WME’s strategy.

“This is a top priority for us,” says Sommer. “Many Indian artists already have global audiences without realising it. We want to help them achieve international success. In the near future, Indian artists will sell out arenas worldwide.”

“It’s a country which is steeped in music but it’s never been professionalised”

On a similar note, Hemrajani explained how festivals are helping to provide a platform for breaking local artists.

“We’ve never had grassroots venues in India, and therefore the music scene never built,” he said. “It’s a country which is steeped in music but it’s never been professionalised.

“Because we don’t have these smaller venues, the only way that we could help certain budding musicians is to put them on at festivals. So at Lollapalooza… you’ll see a Green Day, Shawn Mendes, Glass Animals, Louis Tomlinson but you’ll also see a whole bunch of Indian acts – [playing to] 60,000 people per day, and then they collaborate with some of the global artists.”

The policy extended to Ed Sheeran’s groundbreaking – +–=÷× (Mathematics) Tour, which visited six cities in India – Pune, Hyderabad, Chennai, Bengaluru, Shillong and Delhi – in January/February, organised by BookMyShow Live and AEG Presents Asia.

“With Ed, we did the same,” said Hemrajani. “In every market, there was a new opening act, and it was a young artist who has never played before more than 4,000 or 5,000 people, but now had the chance to play to 30,000 people.”

“Infrastructure continues to be a challenge, and we’re trying to solve that”

As well as major hubs like Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore, cities such as Gurgaon, Chandigarh, Jaipur, Kolkata, Shillong, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Chennai, Kochi, Pune and Indore are also projected to become established touring stops.

Hemrajani previously addressed the current shortcomings with India’s venue infrastructure – saying its first fully-fledged arena was in the works for Mumbai.

“Arenas is very loose word in India because we have… mostly festival grounds,” he said. “‘We don’t have arenas in India. And we have a six-month window where we can do outdoor events, because our weather permits us to do events between October to April, or at best May.

“The need of the hour is actually to have indoor venues with real air conditioning and 18-20,000 capacities.

“Infrastructure continues to be a challenge, and we’re trying to solve that as you build more routing around Middle East and Southeast Asia, because the timing works. It’s the same time of the year, from October to March, April, when you can tour in the Middle East and Southeast Asia. I think anchoring around those markets is a good segue to actually building volume into that market.”

Meanwhile, CassMae, a blind singer-songwriter from Germany, recently performed at one of the world’s largest music and meditation festivals. The 22-year-old graced the Mahashivratri celebrations in front of 600,000 people at the Isha Yoga Centre in South India.

The performance also attracted more than 140 million viewers worldwide, spanning approximately 72 countries, via a global livestream.

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