Hip-hop festival franchise Rolling Loud is being exported to India for a two-day event in Mumbai, organisers have announced.

The US-hailing brand will collaborate with local discovery and booking app District by Zomato, which will exclusively ticket and produce the festival.

Dates and lineup for the India debut are yet to be revealed, but organisers have promised an “array of global superstars and international talent and top and rising Indian hip-hop artists”.

Previous editions of Rolling Loud have featured stars such as Travis Scott, WizKid, Kendrick Lamar, Future, Travis Scott, Playboi Carti, Post Malone, Nicki Minaj and Megan Thee Stallion.

“We never imagined Rolling Loud would take us all the way to India — it’s incredible,” Rolling Loud co-founders and co-CEOs Matt Zingler and Tariq Cherif said in a joint statement. “The hip-hop scene in India has been booming, and bringing the festival to Mumbai felt like the right decision. We’re excited to create a space where Indian fans can celebrate the artists they love, while also introducing international acts to a new audience. For us, it’s always been about building community through hip-hop — and we can’t wait to experience how India shows up.”

“India’s hip-hop scene is on fire right now, it’s raw, it’s real, and it’s ready”

The two-day festival in India will feature two “distinct stages with elaborate production” alongside local food and drink options, art installations and experiential activations that “all tie back to the celebration of global and Indian hip-hop culture”.

District by Zomato CEO Rahul Ganjoo comments: “India’s hip-hop scene is on fire right now, it’s raw, it’s real, and it’s ready. Rolling Loud coming to India isn’t just another festival drop; it’s a cultural shift. For years, we’ve felt the need to bridge India’s sound with the global stage, and this is that moment. It’s bigger than music, it’s a loud, undeniable signal that Indian hip-hop is here, it’s global, and it’s got something to say. We’re proud to bring this home.”

Since the event was founded in 2015, Rolling Loud has held festivals in New York, Miami, Toronto and Los Angeles, as well as in Australia, Germany, Portugal, The Netherlands, Thailand and Austria.

It is the latest international festival brand that has been attracted to India’s booming live market, following Lollapalooza and Palm Tree Festival. Read more about the development of the country’s events here.

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Sony Music India and Los Angeles-based entertainment company The Hello Group (THG) have formed a strategic JV aimed at boosting international touring opportunities for Indian artists.

THG India promises to combine Sony Music India’s understanding of the domestic music landscape with THG’s expertise in global touring and artist development.

It will offer end-to-end support for Indian talent, including comprehensive artist management and publishing, as well as global live event booking.

“This is a great moment for the Indian music industry and its vibrant creative community,” says Sony Music India MD Vinit Thakkar. “THG India marks our first international collaboration of this scale right here in India, and it serves as a critical bridge. By combining THG’s strength in global live touring and their international network with our deep local expertise, we are strategically empowering Indian artists with the resources, seasoned management, and global network essential to truly accelerate their careers and resonate on the international stage.”

Founded in 2016, THG has more than 16 businesses in its portfolio, spanning sectors including music, live touring, TV/film, marketing, technology, consumer products, venture, hospitality and leisure. It has booked acts such as Jeff Satur, Mark Ambor, I.M of Monsta X, Matt Steffanina, Sunkis, Greyson Chance, EMEI, C-Kan and Kang Daniel.

“The Indian music scene boasts an incredible wealth of talent, and its global influence is undeniable,” adds THG CEO Taylor Jones. “THG India reinforces our deep commitment to building a robust platform for these artists, underpinned by our extensive experience in live touring, artist development and publishing. With our dedicated team in Mumbai and our proven track record of orchestrating worldwide tours for top-tier artists, we are uniquely poised to amplify India’s voices like never before.”

“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”

India’s flourishing live music market is spotlighted in IQ Magazine‘s latest market report, which came on the heels of Coldplay performing the two biggest stadium shows of the 21st century in January at Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad, Gujarat.

Presented by BookMyShow and Live Nation, the shows pulled in more than 130,000 punters each night, on top of three shows at Mumbai’s 50,000-cap DY Patil Stadium. The band’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 report on the shows by BookMyShow and EY India.

Ed Sheeran also brought his – +–=÷× (Mathematics) Tour to six cities in India in January/February for his biggest-ever run in the country, organised by AEG Presents Asia and BookMyShow Live. Travis Scott, Dua Lipa, Maroon 5, Guns N’ Roses, and Bryan Adams have also dipped their feet in the market.

However, there is also an enormous audience for domestic superstars such as Arijit Singh, Diljit Dosanjh, Yo Yo Honey Singh, Pritam and Shreya Ghoshal.

“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,” said India International Music Week founder Su-shil Chhugani. “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.”

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Here, IQ presents the second and final part of our India market report. Read part one here.

Festivals

While India may be bucking many international trends, the slight weakness in the global festival market is perhaps not one of them, as single-artist tours steal some of the heat from the sector.

“I think [the biggest attraction] was festivals once upon a time, but I feel that it is now more skewed towards single-artist shows with one headliner,” says Deepak Choudhary, CEO of promoter EVA Live.

“And that is where the market is working towards. Even in just the last year, if you look at the numbers, I would say international artist shows have increased significantly in India, and festivals have kind of gone down, even from an attendance point of view.”

Boutique dance music festival Magnetic Fields, which takes place in a 17th-century palace in Rajasthan, marked its tenth edition last year. Munbir Chawla, who with wife Sarah runs the festival, says the influx of major tours was felt across the festival business.

“Last year definitely felt like it was the beginning of the boom, in many ways – a lot of big artists were either announced last year or arrived last year. People only have a limited amount of finances they can put towards going out, including festivals. So I think a lot of the festivals felt that pinch off the back of that.”

India certainly has plenty of them, from BookMyShow’s rock fest Bandland in Bengaluru and other BMS-related events such as Lollapalooza and Sunburn in Goa to indigenous events such as Hornbill Festival in Nagaland, which showcases traditional Naga music and culture alongside contemporary genres.

“Last year definitely felt like it was the beginning of the boom, in many ways”

Among the highlights of the calendar are some that espouse notably progressive causes. Echoes of Earth in Bengaluru positions itself as “India’s greenest music festival.” Last December’s seventh edition featured a solar-powered stage, upcycled structures, a no-plastic policy, and waste-to-art installations promoting environmental awareness and nature conservation. As well as music from 40 international and Indian acts including Mount Kimbie, Cobblestone Jazz, French 79, Recondite, and Dam Swindle.

“Echoes of Earth is a zero-plastic, zero-waste music festival, and every person coming to the event is made aware of it,” founder Roshan Natalkar told Adgully magazine in February. “We have solar-powered spaces on site, including one of our music stages. Biogas is being introduced in our food court this year, and we have a dedicated team that ensures responsible waste management so that none of the waste generated at the event ends up in landfills.”

A second edition of the festival’s Goa spin-off, planned for February, was cancelled late last year, owing to unforeseen circumstances. In March, the festival collected the Circular Festival Award at event sustainability organisation A Greener Future’s International AGF Awards – the first Indian festival to do so.

India also gained its first-ever women-only festival last month, in the form of Sonic Tigress, a one-day event launched by media entrepreneur Darshan M, which took place at Phoenix Marketcity in Bangaluru.

Acts that performed included Su- Pra, Nikhita Gandhi, Aditi Mittal, Wild Wild Women, Meg and the Miracles, Tipriti Kharbangar & Chie Nishikori, and Niveditha Ode Linda, all of whom apparently had to divest their bands of any men.

“There is a new wave of event infrastructure that is coming”

“The whole thought behind this festival is not to give women a seat at someone else’s table but to build a full table just for them,” said Darshan M. “I have personally been to too many events where I witnessed drunk men harass women, and I hope Sonic Tigress [will] be the beginning of a new experience for women who just want to be able to enjoy themselves without unwanted attention.”

Venues
If infrastructure is the most-uttered word in conversations about the future of the Indian live business, what that usually refers to is venues.

“Organisers need to know that infrastructure is core to an experience,” Roshan Abbas, event entrepreneur and founder of Mumbai performing arts collective Kommune, recently told EVENTFAQS. “We don’t have that infrastructure thinking here. India built a couple of sports stadiums, which are used for events, but the sports people don’t like them being used for events, and the events people don’t like to use them because they are not event-friendly. We have to construct everything. And now, there is a new wave of event infrastructure that is coming.”

In February, the state government of Karnakata announced that it would subsidise the construction and development of the aerodrome arena project, announced in 2020, with a 9,000-capacity dome for concerts and large-scale events, a smaller 2,000-cap dome, and an outdoor venue.

Located at Kempegowda International Airport, the venue (developed by a consortium led by events firm Phase 1 Experiences and property developer Embassy Group, with support from Live Nation), will be the first major “experiential and entertainment destination” in Bangalore (Bengaluru), a megacity that is home to more than 10m people and currently only served by smaller sports arenas.

“If we don’t get more small, independent venues, we are not going to ever see the bigger bands break out of India”

“The venue will be on par with iconic international concert arenas such as New York’s Madison Square Garden and London’s O2 Arena, enabling us to import the biggest shows and best of global talent to India,” said Oum Pradutt, founder and managing director of Phase 1 Events & Experiences. “This will attract audiences and fans from not just across India but across south Asia and establish Bengaluru’s position as a live concert and entertainment capital globally.”

The lack of such a venue has been a sore point in Bengaluru – the third-largest city in India and one of its most economically productive and fastest-growing.

“It’s very unfortunate that just because there’s a lack of venues, concerts like Coldplay were shifted to less prominent places like Ahmedabad, and most of the people from Bangalore and around had to travel,” local politician Rizwan Arshad recently told local English-language newspaper the Deccan Herald. “[So], our reputation as an international city gets a beating, and we miss out on the economy that develops around the concert.”

Another new venue, the 22,000-cap Terraform Arena, an outdoor, 16-acre facility described as India’s first plug-and-play live entertainment arena, opened in November in Papanahalli, north of Bengaluru. It has since hosted shows by artists including Arijit Singh, Yo Yo Honey Singh, Bryan Adams, and Hukum.

But while developers are scrambling to capture the large-scale opportunity, there is less evidence of investment in smaller venues. “We still do a lot of grassroots work, and on a grassroots level, the infrastructure has a long, long way to go,” says Chawla. “Infrastructure on the larger scale is obviously where all the money is now being pushed. And the market is still pretty nascent – a lot of the smaller events still rely on outside funding, sponsorships, and corporate funding.”

“So I think there’s a lot of work that still needs to happen on that side. If we don’t get more small, independent venues, we are not going to ever see the bigger bands break out of India. The hip-hop sector is booming; I think some of the electronic news on the planet is coming out of India. Musically, it is extremely exciting.”

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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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IQ 135, the latest issue of the international live music industry’s leading magazine, is available to read online now.

In the May 2025 issue, Hanna Ellington goes behind the scenes of Usher’s Past Present Future residency tour. She also teamed up with Gordon Masson to speak with some of the leading professionals involved in the continuing rise of country music.

In the latest instalment of The Architect series, Masson also sat down with Herman Schueremans to speak about his role in developing the market in his native Belgium and beyond.

Adam Woods turns his focus to India in our latest market report, exploring the subcontinent’s live music scene and its highly promising trajectory.

Meanwhile, Derek Robertson spoke with professionals in the live audio sector to discover some new technological series made in the space, while Eamonn Forde delved into the growth market of diaspora shows.

Nine months on from Legends’ blockbuster acquisition of ASM Global, Chris Bray tells IQ about the merger process and their hopes for the future.

For comments and columns, Electric Castle’s Oltea Zambori questions what’s next for sustainable live music, while OCESA’s Jorge Cambronero details how Shakira is making history across Latin America.

A selection of magazine content will appear online in the next four weeks but to ensure your fix of essential live music industry features, opinion and analysis, click here to subscribe to IQ – or check out what you’re missing out on with the limited preview below:

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Coldplay’s record-breaking shows at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, in January generated a claimed economic impact of $75 million for India.

The British band attracted more than 222,000 fans from 500 cities across their 25 and 26 January concerts, which set the record for the largest stadium concerts of the 21st century.

The economic boost for India included a direct injection of $46 million for Ahmedabad, according to a report from strategy consulting firm EY-Parthenon and BookMyShow Live, which presented the show in partnership with Live Nation.

“Coldplay’s Music Of The Spheres shows in Ahmedabad marked a watershed moment in India’s entertainment economy,” said Naman Pugalia, chief business officer, live events, BookMyShow. “Hosting one of the world’s biggest bands at the world’s largest cricket stadium, with over 111,000 fans each night meant reimagining what’s possible in India.

“Together with EY, we’ve been able to articulate how a single concert can spark a chain reaction for India’s next cultural boomtowns – economically and culturally. At BookMyShow Live, we are committed to driving strategic, sustainable growth that transforms cities into cultural capitals and establishes them as permanent stops on the global touring circuit. As promoters and ecosystem builders, we believe India is the next frontier for international acts, and this is just the beginning.”

“Hosting one of the world’s biggest bands at the world’s largest cricket stadium, with over 111,000 fans each night meant reimagining what’s possible in India”

EY-Parthenon says the report unveils the massive downstream impact of large-scale international tours, signalling India’s arrival as a high-value, high-potential destination for global entertainment that is no longer on the fringe of the global touring circuit.

India’s live entertainment sector surpassed the INR 12,000 crore ($1.4 billion) mark in 2024 and is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of around 19% over the next three years, according to the firm.

“This surge in consumer enthusiasm for world-class events reflects not just a rising disposable income but an evolving cultural fabric that craves immersive experiences,” says Raghav Anand, partner and leader, digital, media and convergence, EY-Parthenon India. “The economic potential of this sector is tremendous, creating a ripple effect across allied industries and fostering opportunities for creators and local professionals alike.”

Coldplay’s shows in Ahmedabad came on the heels of their three 55,000-cap dates at Mumbai’s DY Patil Sports Stadium on 18-19 & 21 January, which saw 13 million users attempt to secure tickets during the on-sale.

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Travis Scott’s Circus Maximus World Tour has seen “unprecedented demand” across new markets, according to promoters.

The 33-year-old rapper recently extended his record-breaking, Live Nation-produced tour to Johannesburg (South Africa), Delhi (India), Seoul (Korea), Hainan (China) and Tokyo (Japan).

Scott’s debut concert in India at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in Dehli sold out ‘instantly’, prompting local promoter and producer BookMyShow to add a second date.

More than 100,000 tickets, priced between ₹3,500 (€36) and ₹30,000 (€314), were snapped up in under two hours for the 18 and 19 October concerts.

With recent concerts by the likes of Ed Sheeran, Coldplay, Green Day and Shawn Mendes, leading executives say India’s touring scene is poised to ‘explode’.

Demand for the Circus Maximus World Tour was equally staggering in China, where Scott’s 1 November show at Sanya Stadium (cap 45,000) in Hainan also sold out immediately. The Province targeted Scott as part of its campaign to become an “international performing arts capital” as China loosens its strict policies for international artists.

Scott’s 25 October concert at Goyang Stadium in Seoul, Korea, has also sold out, with over 45,000 tickets purchased.

The Houston-born artist remains one of the only rap artists currently selling out stadiums across the globe

The Houston-born artist remains one of the only rap artists currently selling out stadiums across the globe. The Circus Maximus World Tour kicked off in October 2023 and included 76 sold-out stops across North America, Europe, the UK, Latin America, Australia, and New Zealand throughout 2023 and 2024.

The outing concluded as the highest-grossing rap tour in history with $209.3 million and 1.7 million tickets sold.

Later this month, Scott will headline Coachella Valley Arts & Music Festival at the Empire Polo Club in Indio, California.

The rapper is billed as the fourth headliner, occupying the same spot on the poster that No Doubt did in 2024 with the tagline “Travis Scott designs the desert”.

In a press release, Scott’s representatives state he is slated to headline the main stage on Saturday night “where he will debut an entirely new era of music to the world”.

Scott was scheduled to headline in 2020 before the festival was cancelled due to the pandemic. He was booked again in 2022, but was taken off the lineup following the fatal crowd crush at his own Astroworld Festival in 2021.

He will also headline the UK’s Reading & Leeds in August alongside Chappell Roan, Bring Me The Horizon and Hozier.

Scott is represented by Cara Lewis in North America and Wasserman Music’s James Rubin for the rest of the world.

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Purchasing power, ticket prices and the cost of infrastructure are among the top challenges in emerging touring markets, according to executives.

Connie Shao (AEG Presents), Tom Matthews (Live Nation APAC), Naman Pugalia (Book My Show) and Melanie Eselevsky (Move Concerts Argentina) united at last month’s ILMC Futures Forum to discuss the challenges and opportunities presented by newer touring territories.

While India is on the verge of a breakthrough as a must-play destination for global artists, Pugalia said that the market’s purchasing power is “still not where it needs to be”.

“However, there are forward-looking artists who realise that India is the next big market they need to cultivate,” he continued. “And they’ve agreed to lower prices and be flexible with the number of tickets allowed per transaction etc. Those artists who have bet on the market are now beginning to reap the rewards.”

Pugalia referenced recent high-profile tours by Coldplay and Ed Sheeran – acts that have frequently visited the territory over the last decade and continually invested in the market.

“A million dollars in Singapore and a million dollars in Jakarta is very different, and we can’t achieve both without causing an issue”

Matthews, a former UTA agent who was recently appointed director, talent & touring at Live Nation APAC, pointed out that many artist teams approach the continent of Asia as a single touring market. He reminded delegates that purchasing power varies widely from country to country.

“The big problem I’ve seen recently – on the agent and promoter side – is artists wanting a million dollars for a show,” he said. “A million dollars in Singapore and a million dollars in Jakarta is very different, and we can’t achieve both without causing an issue. It means we’re going to have to pump the ticket price, but the average income across these countries is not the same.

“With a European or North American tour, an agent could increase the price by $40 or €40 across the board. You can’t do that in Asia. Each market is too different, so it’s very price sensitive. So you need to weigh it up. Our goal is to make the artist as much money as possible but selling out the show is the best thing for their career. There are other ways to make money that don’t affect the artist sales so we have to be smart as promoters and educate the artist.”

Pugalia agreed that raising ticket prices isn’t the best way to achieve a higher artist guarantee – especially in a country with such a huge disparity between socioeconomic classes.

“Our country is very compartmentalised,” he said. “There is a segment of society that will pay top dollar for shows in India and those VIP prices compare to anywhere else in the world and sometimes are even more expensive. But as far as GA is concerned… that still needs to pull its weight.”

“This may come as a surprise but doing a show in India is more expensive than doing a show in Europe or North America”

Eselevsky said that Move Concerts Agentina has been forced to increase ticket prices to compete with an increasingly crowded market, though fans aren’t entirely happy about it.

“Last year we went on sale with Eric Clapton and we were the first promoter to go on sale with ticket prices over the 200,000 pesos mark. Fans were like, ‘Oh yeah, but it’s more expensive than in the UK’. Then the other promoters started to scale up their prices as well. Now it’s standard for a GA stadium ticket to cost $150, which is a lot for any market.”

The cost of infrastructure is also an issue when it comes to staging shows in South America, according to Eselevsky. “We don’t have enough lighting equipment, sound equipment, stages or roofs and bringing it from abroad is way too expensive,” she added.

Investing in infrastructure is a top priority for Book My Show. “Every time we’re doing a festival or a show, we’re essentially building a city that we need to dismantle right after and it’s very expensive,” said Pugalia. “This may come as a surprise but doing a show in India is more expensive than in Europe or North America because of the paucity of equipment and venues. We’ve got to build a market here.”

Though these newer touring territories have a way to go with purchasing power and infrastructure, the panel was confident that international artists will reap the long-term benefits of visiting the markets.

“A lot of our artists are now making Asia a primary market and planning the rest of their world tour around it”

“Yes, it’s a lower guarantee now but if we look at a 2-3-4 year plan and we start generating the ticket prices at this number, this is how much you’re going to get on your VIP lift on your first tour, and on your second tour, and on your third tour,” said Matthews. “We don’t want artists to come in as a one-stop. We want them to come back year on year. A lot of our artists are now making Asia a primary market and planning the rest of their world tour around it. It’s a beautiful market with incredible infrastructure and if it’s done correctly, you can reap huge financial rewards.”

Pugalia was similarly optimistic about the potential of higher touring revenues in India, especially now that the concert economy has entered the political lexicon.

“There’s traditional sponsorship and we work with brands – both in India and globally – to try and make sense of these P&Ls,” he said. “But governments are increasingly stepping in. They have realised – for better and worse – that tickets are political currency, as well as social and cultural currency. As a result, state governments in India are competing to get business, which we’ve never seen in the past. That’s supremely helpful. I believe this is a good thing for the overall market in terms of pricing.

He continued: “With no venues, abysmal infrastructure and scant interest, we’ve already made our presence felt over the last few quarters. With all of these things improving and artist interest increasing, we’re just getting started. This is day zero for us.”

Eselevsky, meanwhile, said Argentina stands to benefit from newfound economic stability. “We’ve had the same exchange rate for over a year, which is a long time,” she said. “I foresee much more investment in our market because the economy is not as unclear as it was not so long ago.”

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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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India is set to gain its first-ever women-only festival called Sonic Tigress later this month.

The one-day event, launched by media entrepreneur Darshan M, will take place at Phoenix Marketcity in Bangalore on 29 March with performances from several renowned female artists from the country.

Acts set to perform include Sukriti and Prakriti Kakar, Nikhita Gandhi, Aditi Mittal, Wild Wild Women, Meg and the Miracles, Tipriti Kharbangar & Chie Nishkori and Niveditha Ode Linda.

“We live in a world where acronyms like DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) are thrown around a lot, but in reality nothing has changed at the ground level,” Darshan told local press. “Women are still fighting for opportunities. So the whole thought behind this festival is not to give women a seat at someone else’s table, but to build a full table just for them. Sonic Tigress isn’t about inclusion; it’s about owning the stage.

“We live in a world where acronyms like DEI are thrown around a lot, but in reality nothing has changed at the ground level”

“I have personally been to too many events where I witnessed drunk men harass women, and I hope Sonic Tigress would be the beginning of a new experience for women who just want to be able to enjoy themselves without unwanted attention.”

Darshan and his team have gone to extreme lengths to ensure that the festival is 100% women, even asking performing artists to rework the band lineup. “Artists have been very accommodating of our idea and intention,” he said. “Additionally, we will make sure all the support staff, usher, hosts and even security guards are all women. We have also requested the police to provide women constables.”

In addition to music, Sonic Tigress will feature interactive installations, immersive spaces where technology and artistry meet and homegrown boutique brands.

Tickets for the festival are split across three categories: general admission Rs 999 (€10), fan pit Rs 4999 (€53) and VIP Rs 9999 (€105).

Female-focused festivals have popped up around the globe in the last decade, from Brandi Carlile’s annual Girls Just Wanna Weekend gathering in Mexico to Ocesa’s newly launched Hera HSBC in Mexico and All Thing’s Go increasingly popular Washington DC event.

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