Raga and Roll: Inside India’s booming music market

If you wanted to sum up the demographic in the world under the scale of the live opportunity in India in a few lines, you would struggle to do it much more economically than Ashish Hemrajani, founder and CEO of ticketing company and well-connected promoter BookMyShow, speaking at ILMC in London in February.

“I come from a country of 1.4bn people,” he said. “It has the [largest] age of 35. There are 300m Indians that speak English as their first language. Unlike in China, Spotify, Netflix, and YouTube all exist in India, and kids growing up are exposed to the same music universe.”

This picture of youth, scale, and global connection explains why, at a time when some well-established live markets are struggling to make the sums work, India is fast becoming the market so many have long predicted it could be.

The evidence is all around, and most of it bears BookMyShow’s fingerprints. Coldplay (through BookMyShow.Live/Live Nation) hosted the two biggest stadium shows of the 21st century in January at Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, pulling in more than 130,000 eager punters each night, on top of three shows at Mumbai’s 50,000-cap DY Patil Stadium.

The bottom line is compelling. Coldplay’s Ahmedabad concerts generated an estimated economic impact of INR 641, (£56m) including a direct boost of INR 392 (34.4m) to the city’s economy – deploying 15,000 personnel and funnelling 138,000 travellers through the local airport, according to a newly released report on the shows by BookMyShow and EY India.

Diljit Dosanjh in particular is a leading light in Indian music’s push for wider recognition in the Western world

Ed Sheeran (BMS Live/AEG Presents) was in the country a year ago, with seven shows in six cities, adventurously scattered the length and breadth of the landmass. Lollapalooza (BMS Live/C3 Presents) has visited, too, bringing Green Day, Shawn Mendes, Glass Animals, Louis Tomlinson, and Nothing But Thieves to Mumbai’s Mahalaxmi Racecourse for its third Indian edition in March.

Travis Scott, Dua Lipa, Maroon 5, Guns N’ Roses, and Bryan Adams have all put India on the schedule in recent and coming months – and that’s before we even mention ever more feverish tours for Indian superstars such as Arijit Singh, Diljit Dosanjh, Yo Yo Honey Singh, Pritam, and Shreya Ghoshal, whose success at home is a match for any visiting act.

Dosanjh in particular is a leading light in Indian music’s push for wider recognition in the Western world. The 40-year-old singer delivered three sold-out shows at London’s O2, promoted by Live Nation, and came onstage at an Ed Sheeran show in Mumbai a couple of months earlier, where the pair gave a rendition of Dosanjh’s hit track Lover in Punjabi.

What now happens, amid all this excitement, is a rush to bring together booming supply and demand in a country that, by the admission of its leading lights, is still sorely lacking in infrastructure. The careful Hemrajani (who has spoken in detail about the challenges of staging concerts in cricket stadiums, with their delicate grass), has memorably likened the current state of India’s entertainment framework to building an airline without an airport.

For arenas, as Hemrajani has noted, India mostly has festival grounds or cricket stadiums that are only very occasionally adapted for music. For grassroots venues, the country likewise has relatively few. India’s is a live market that is effectively growing from the top down.

“I expect the state and the private sector to focus on developing necessary infrastructure and skills for the concert economy”

“Even stadium-sized concerts are being set up just for the duration of the concert, ground up,” says Su-shil Chhugani, founder of India International Music Week and of Stubborn Company, which builds businesses with young creative entrepreneurs. “And this is not just in far-out cities; I’m talking about in the heart of Mumbai city. At the MMRDA Grounds, in [Mumbai’s business district] Bandra Kurla Complex, you can configure your concert based on the size of the audience. And when there is no concert, it’s just bare, barren ground – it doesn’t even have grass on it.”

So clear is the opportunity that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has weighed in with expectations of his own. “Big artists from around the world are attracted to India,” he told an investment forum in Odisha, eastern India in January. “You must have seen the beautiful pictures of Coldplay concerts in Mumbai and Ahmedabad… I expect the state and the private sector to focus on developing necessary infrastructure and skills for the concert economy.”

For decades, in spite of occasional shows by Michael Jackson, The Rolling Stones, Beyoncé, and other superstars, a nation obsessed with cricket and Bollywood never really seemed on the cusp of embracing a Western-style gig-going habit.

Even now, concerts as a sector are dwarfed in volume by other types of events. According to EE-MA-EY research, concerts accounted for 1% of projects conducted by Indian event companies last year, compared to managed corporate events, which took 58% of the market, and weddings and personal events, which accounted for 18%.

But volumes are certainly increasing. EEMA-EY identified 70 to 80 shows with audiences of 20,000 or more in 2024, while BookMyShow estimates that 30,000 live events took place last year.
What has really changed, however, is the willingness of audiences to buy tickets. Anecdotally, ticketing and D2C revenues now account for 60–75% of total concert revenues, compared to less than 40% of total revenues before 2020, when sponsorship was required to make ends meet. What’s changed?

“With the amount of ground that has been covered, and rapidly so, over the last ten years, it now feels like we’re just a few years behind”

“I guess it’s not just one thing – it’s everything, with the whole ecosystem taking shape,” says Chhugani, a veteran of Sony Music, Rolling Stone, and Viacom. “Until 15 years ago, you would still say that the Indian music industry, from the recorded and the live side of things, was 40 years behind the West, but with the amount of ground that has been covered, and rapidly so, over the last ten years, it now feels like we’re just a few years behind. And I think the consumption and appetite for music in India is not only on par, I feel it’s fast-growing, and it’s going to surpass most of the other regions.”

Not insignificantly, in recent years, more than 250m Indians have moved out of poverty and joined the so-called neo-middle class, a group that Prime Minister Modi has described as the “powerhouse of Indian aspirations.” As the number of affluent consumers expands, and with it their appetite for novel entertainment, a surge in consumption inevitably follows. This demographic swell has been accompanied by a variety of other favourable trends, according to Deepak Choudhary, CEO of promoter EVA Live.

“If you look at the macro post-Covid, India has been the very large beneficiary,” he says. “Independent music has grown; Bollywood music has gone down; venues have increased. The Middle East has started buying, and India is getting the benefit. Streaming of every artist has grown in this region. The con- sumer has started traveling, and a lot of travellers are attending events. So sponsors are coming in, and a lot of investors are coming in.”

And if this sounds like the kind of transformation that doesn’t go much further than the biggest cities, the evidence of the market is that, alongside the major hubs, cities as disparate and diverse as Gurgaon, Chandigarh, Jaipur, Kolkata, Shil- long, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Chennai, Kochi, Pune, and Indore could become established touring stops.

“There are 100 cities that are hosting larger events,” says Choudhary. “Other than the ten big cities that can host artists [who command] anywhere upwards of a million dollars, there are 80 or 90 that can host artists under half a million dollars, and the turnover and the margins have been hugely high.”

“Men are trusted and women are tested, which perhaps makes fewer women stay till they reach the top”

With such dramatic growth comes a degree of chaos and dissent. A stalwart of the Indian festival scene, NH7 Weekender in Pune, was cancelled in December, just hours before it was due to begin, with police citing law-and-order concerns and traffic congestion.

BMS Live’s Coldplay shows set records but also sparked outrage, as more than 10m fans competed for tickets and resale prices rocketed despite a legal ban on scalping. Diljit Dosanjh fans had similar complaints against ticketer Zomato, and the state excise department revoked the alcohol permit for the star’s concert at Pune’s Kothrud Arena following an objection from local politician Chandrakant Patil, who said: “Such events are not in line with the city’s culture. They will cause significant inconvenience to residents, including noise pollution and traffic congestion.”

Meanwhile, like in most countries, a strong male leaning is fairly apparent in India’s live business, at least in the upper levels. “Men are trusted and women are tested, which perhaps makes fewer women stay till they reach the top – that is if they get through the door,” says creative and event professional Deepa Bajaj, who most recently launched US company Fever Labs’ Indian operation, including Live Your City, with its Candlelight Concerts series.

“But of course, there are women trying to do good things, even if it’s more often with small businesses or ventures. The only way it can keep improving is when some of those rare women or unusual men at the top champion the best professional, regardless of gender. My hope is more and more of them will reach positions of influence and, as leaders, continue to question biases and aim to serve business outcomes first.”

“India’s live entertainment ecosystem is a really dynamic space, with a lot of opportunity for expansion in both format and scale”

Promoters
For a majority of the artists now putting India in the international touring spotlight, the common denominator is BookMyShow – once simply a huge ticketing platform, now the end-to-end promoter that knows how to roll out the red carpet and iron out the cultural and logistical wrinkles for visiting acts.

BookMyShow went up a notch just ahead of the pandemic when it brought U2’s The Joshua Tree Tour to Mumbai, but the recent flood of major international shows marks it out as the uncontested market leader.

“We have observed the audience scale and affinity steadily increasing across our live music events,” says Anil Makhija, BookMyShow COO, live entertainment and venues, noting recent events including Coldplay, Sheeran, and Lollapalooza.

“The resounding reception of artists and content formats over the last few years has put India at the top of the choice pool for promoters who want to bring world-class entertainment to the largest democracy in the world,” he says.

“India’s live entertainment ecosystem is a really dynamic space, with a lot of opportunity for expansion in both format and scale, and there’s a parallel increase in demand and spending capacity towards those kinds of experiences.”

“Bengaluru is a fast-developing market, and so is New Delhi, but some way behind Mumbai”

Ed Sheeran brought his globe-trotting – +–=÷× Tour to six cities in India between 30 January and 15 February for his biggest-ever run in the country, organised by BookMyShow.Live and AEG Presents Asia.

Characteristically, Sheeran got stuck in, having caught the bug for the place on his previous visit, when he played a sold-out show at Mumbai’s Mahalaxmi Race Course. Accordingly, a tour was built that visited diverse and far-flung spots, including Bengaluru in the southern state of Karnataka.

“Bengaluru is a fast-developing market, and so is New Delhi, but some way behind Mumbai,” Sheeran promoter Simon Jones of AEG Presents told IQ in March. “There is infrastructure in the major cities, but building and trucking an outdoor stadium show in Shillong and outdoor sites in remote cities like Chennai, is unfathomably challenging. You can’t easily get replacement parts for when things go wrong, and you can’t very easily come across additional expertise.”

Inevitably, other artists fancy the sound of an in-depth India jaunt, Jones confirmed. “I see many artists wanting to take the leap into playing multi-city interior India tours, now that Ed has paved the way showing that it can work. We have been hit up by managers and agents asking us how we achieved it, and [telling us] how they want to replicate it.”

Makhija agrees that the growth is very much in the deeper markets. “Tier two and three cities are now the thriving hubs for out-of-home entertainment, showing tremendous growth and evolution in their appetite. Decentralisation is another game-changer. The Ed Sheeran tour highlighted the growing demand for world-class performances in cities beyond the usual metros.”

“It’s not just about stakes in businesses, but rather about nurturing idea”

BookMyShow’s TribeVibe, under founder and CEO Shoven Shah, represents another way the promoter is developing regional markets, curating music and comedy performances and tours around a network of more than 750 colleges nationwide.

Shah, along with Sunburn CEO Karan Singh, is an example of BookMyShow’s policy of “intrepeneurship” – fostering entrepreneurial talent within the group. “It’s not just about stakes in businesses, but rather about nurturing ideas, enabling innovation, and scaling them thoughtfully to serve the evolving tastes of India’s entertainment-loving audience,” says Makhija.

If international acts are making a splash in India now, local acts are more than capable of selling huge quantities of tickets, too. Sheeran duet collaborator and Punjabi superstar Dosanjh’s Dil-Luminati Tour, promoted by record label Saregama India and Ripple Effect Studios, sold over 250,000 tickets in 2024, with its Mumbai event selling out in less than a minute.

The tour, heavily promoted by its ticketing platform Zomato, also served as a masterclass of cross-promotional tie-ins, as brands integrated their products with the tour, from onstage dancing lemons (the Lemon investment app) to free water bottles for singles in the audience (dating service Jeevansathi.com).

Ticketing has proved a key driver for the live business in India, led from the front by BookMyShow. Another powerful player looks likely to be Zomato, which last year acquired fintech giant Paytm’s entertainment ticketing business, including Ticket-New and Paytm Insider, in a deal worth $244.1m. It has since brought Dua Lipa to Mumbai in November for its Zomato Feeding India Concert.

“The youngsters are listening to international music and traveling to a lot of international destinations”

Zomato plans to go head-to-head with BookMyShow on the promoting front, having recently hired BookMyShow’s former head of live events and intellectual property, Kunal Khambhati, in a bid to grow its own live events business.

Food and grocery delivery firm Swiggy, meanwhile, has launched a new offering on its app, Swiggy Scenes, enabling it to tap into the events and ticketing space. Another ticketer, SkillBox, recently sold a minority stake to Warner Music Group, which in 2023 acquired Indian artist management and live events company, E-Positive – home to Bollywood playback singer Darshan Raval, one of the most-streamed artists in India.

Live Your City, part of US company Fever Labs, was behind the Indian leg of Candlelight Concerts, which last year brought cleverly adapted, classical-style pop songs to venues including South Mumbai’s Royal Opera House.

The series also illustrated the broader demand for events across numerous large Indian cities, including Delhi, Bengaluru, Ahmedabad, Pune, Lucknow, Jaipur, Thiruvananthapuram, Meerut, Faridabad, Gurugram, Greater Noida, Navi Mumbai, and Thane.

“This is a great time for live events in India,” says Bajaj. “People have returned to going out post-Covid, but not to the cinema, which was previously more popular. The audience is looking for more value-driven, unique, and communal experiences that enrich their going-out experience. This is why Candlelight Concerts started off well in India. Of course, it took a lot of work to serve a heterogeneous and new market, involving significant localisation in the content, the production, and the experience itself.”

“I think the game has changed a lot… a lot of the underground promoters have moved on”

Among the other promoters rising to the opportunity is EVA Live under Choudhary, a serial entrepreneur with a lengthy track record in media and education. In addition to its recent Bryan Adams shows in Kolkata, Shillong, Gurugram, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Goa, brokered by All Things Live, EVA Live is taking Arijit Singh to Abu Dhabi in May. Its festivals include multicultural extravaganza The Great Indian Dandiya Festival and Bollywood Music Project, with two parallel stages and more than enough artists.

Choudhary has a theory on the importance of not only streaming but also travel to the rise of international touring entertainment in India. “The youngsters are listening to international music and traveling to a lot of international destinations, exploring other cultures and seeing performances,” he says. “So now they are willing to spend that kind of money on these kinds of events happening in India. And I think their exposure to different genres of music has also contributed to getting those genres of music artists to India and getting them to perform here.”

Unmistakably, live music has become a source of great interest to larger groups, many of which have other significant events businesses. Inevitably, in the shift to big business, there are those who believe some of the feeling could get lost. “When I first moved to India in 2011, we never really called it an industry,” says London-born Munbir Chawla of Rajasthan’s Magnetic Fields Festival and online music guide Wild City. “We called it a scene, you know. And now, suddenly, the word ‘scene’ is unspoken, and we call it an industry.

“I think the game has changed a lot,” he says. “I think a lot of the underground promoters have moved on. So gone are the times of independent parties and doing it all yourself, and now it’s all brand sponsors and that business, techno world – that’s your entry point now.”

Mohammed Abood, co-founder of underground music staple Box-out.fm, the New Delhi-based radio station, label, and promoter, whose live events include festivals like Jazz Weekender and Goa Sunsplash, welcomes the attention brought by blockbuster shows but isn’t sure if they change much on the ground.

“The expectation of many touring bands become slightly unrealistic if they don’t understand the back end of a Coldplay-type event”

“A positive impact is maybe people looking at India in a slightly more organised light,” says Abood. “Many artists don’t want to tour in India because they don’t understand how it works. So people tend to just say, ‘Okay, skip this market.’ Maybe Coldplay now allows for more artists to say, ‘Let’s look at this market.’

“But then the expectation of many touring bands become slightly unrealistic if they don’t understand the back end of a Coldplay-type event,” he adds. “You know, this was executed with international teams collaborating with local teams to produce something significant. It’s slightly challenging when things are presented to the world this perfectly, when, in reality, it’s the opposite sometimes.”

The hope of Indian promoters is that increased attention on the market will highlight India as a producer of varied talent, not just an eager audience or a factory of predictable sounds.
“Definitely Indian artists can sell tickets,” says Abood. “Perfect example: Hanumankind going to Coachel-la. An AP Dhillon, a Diljit Dosanjh are very pop-oriented; they’re considered mainstream acts. Hanuman-kind is an alternative, independent hip-hop act that has reached the success levels of major artists.

“There are many Indian artists that appeal to a global audience that have now started to go out of India. When they started touring, people expected them to play ‘Indian’ music and that kind of confused everyone. But now, I feel like people are not expecting that from every Indian artist, and Indian artists are making contemporary music, with no identity block or any of that.”

The second part of the India market report can be read here.

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