We want to establish India as a global live entertainment hub: BookMyShow’s Owen Roncon

After the recently-concluded beauty and lifestyle festival Nykaaland that witnessed a footfall of 15,000 across two days, live entertainment producer and ticketing company BookMyShow is moving on to the next big thing. The company is bullish on the live entertainment space and unique experiences like Nykaaland is a great opportunity of moving forward from the music space into newer segments like beauty, says Owen Roncon, BookMyShow’s chief of business-live entertainment, who’s had stints with Izumi, Fountainhead MKTG and Oranjuice Entertainment before joining the company last year.  

“Over the last six years BookMyShow has been doing a lot of music. We've migrated from being just a ticketing company to producing and now designing and conceptualizing events as well. Nykaaland is one such concept event; the only one of its kind that has been conceptualized in India,” says Roncon. 

He says that with the upcoming Ed Sheeran concert on March 16 in Mumbai things are only going to get bigger and better. “It's going to get louder for sure. We're engaging with some of the biggest artists in the world. We've got Ed Sheeran coming up now. Tickets are skyrocketing for that and our plans are to establish India as a global live entertainment hub. Every step that we take with every event that we do, we get closer to that goal,” he said. 

He said that BookMyShow has a massive pipeline of events that are coming up that will include other unique concepts like Nykaaland. “The live entertainment segment is the growth area for BookMyShow and we're totally focused and committed to growing this sector. We have various offshoots planned in the future to support and build this sector. We also are recognising the gaps that exist and we're going to be filling those gaps as well. We plan to stay in this segment and we're going to build this fairly big,” he added. 

For now, BookMyShow wants to establish India as a main zone. But yes, we will be taking a few products overseas going forward, he said. 

After the pandemic, Roncon says, there has been a great bounce back for the live entertainment shows. “Straight out of the bat we came out with a few concerts. Backstreet boys, for example, saw the tickets just flying off the shelf. Live entertainment has come back with a vengeance for sure,” he said. 

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