“Consumers are looking for commonplace experiences that are easy on the mind”: Albert Almeida, BookMyShow

The COO – Live Entertainment at BookMyShow opens up about the platform’s virtual live events being hosted amidst the COVID-19 crisis and the lockdown.

What do you do when your core consumer offerings are rendered obsolete? Not because of your follies, but due to uncontrollable external factors – let’s say a global pandemic. For over two decades now, BookMyShow has been getting people to step out of their homes to consume out-of-home (OOH) entertainment. A key service provided by the platform is booking tickets for a variety of entertainment options like movies, music, theatre, sports and live experiences.

With the advent of Coronavirus and a national lockdown in place, there has been a ban on all kinds of public gathering and people are no longer venturing outside. So, no outdoor entertainment. In such a situation, does the platform suspend all its offerings until the crisis is over? Not necessarily. BookMyShow had to find a way of staying relevant without venturing too far away from its core – entertainment.

The platform chose to bring its offerings indoors, with virtual live properties such as ‘Theatre Live - The Stage Comes Home’, ‘Live From HQ’ and ‘#LiveInYourLivingRoom’. These include live theatre, popular music, comedy and other performing art acts that can be experienced indoors. a A similar series called ‘Live Anywhere’ (a JioSaavn initiative) is available on arch-rival Paytm Insider.

The ‘Theatre Live’ series is a part of phase two of the initiative and will be available till April 15. The first phase included ‘Live From HQ’ series, which ran from March 25 to April 1 and included music and comedy. While the platform provides discovery and reach, the artists’ social media profiles double up as the host platform for their acts. The shows have been curated in partnership with Big Bad Wolf Entertainment, Represent (both are artist management agencies), NCPA (National Centre for the Performing Arts) and Instagram. Pallavi Gulani, head - B2B and new initiatives, Big Bad Wolf, says, “We didn't have to rope anyone in. Artists were more than happy to be a part of this when we reached out to them.”

Apart from this, BookMyShow has also introduced a virtual fitness series #StayFitIndiaChallenge, which is guided by experts.

“BookMyShow has always brought the best curated experiences across movies and live entertainment. We wanted to offer a similar experience to our consumers through this period of lockdown and social distancing,” says Albert Almeida, COO – live entertainment at BookMyShow.

But indoor entertainment is the exact opposite of what the platform offers. “For us, it has always been important to get consumers to step out. Replicating the exact entertainment experience and variety within the safety of consumers’ homes was challenging initially, and did take us some time to get used to. But, thanks to our long-term associations with our industry partners in the live entertainment ecosystem, we have been able to overcome this challenge. It’s been a great learning curve,” adds Almeida.

He maintains that the process of discovering the various offerings of the virtual entertainment series is no different from how BookMyShow curates and creates its OOH offerings. “However, given that these have been the first of their kind, it was important to reach as many Indians as we could. Hence, we chose to retain a simple tech base and an open medium, keeping the artists’ social media profiles as the host platform for their acts,” he says.

We asked Almeida about the choice of genres, and if there was anything in particular that worked well in terms of viewership.

He says, “As the discovery engine for all things entertainment, we have, for several years, worked to deeply understand audience preferences across movies, live music, comedy, theatre and sports. With social distancing as the norm, experiences that are commonplace offer a happy respite and are easy on the mind and what all consumers are looking for.”

According to Almeida, the first phase of the series - ‘Live From HQ and ‘#LiveInYourLivingRoom’ - witnessed 4.15 lakh-plus viewers across various performances. With this, artists were able to showcase their performances to a wider audience pool, thereby expanding their own viewership base.

“This was extremely well-appreciated by artists as viewership numbers for several of them were unlike anything ever witnessed earlier, especially since the audience is not restricted to any geography and users across the country can access these performances.” Almeida adds.

The demand led to the second phase. A part of phase two, ‘Theatre Live’ includes performances of theatre artistes live from their couch. The performances include dramatised readings, monologues, poetry recitations, storytelling, live music and pure theatrics. The lineup includes names such as Kunaal Roy Kapur, Manvi Gagroo, Suchitra Pillai, Arif Zakaria, Sonali Kulkarni, amongst several others.

The new series also includes the second edition of ‘Live From HQ’, with its ‘Spoken Word Edition’, which includes poetry, stories and sonnets (shayari) in multiple languages. It will be available till April 12. The lineup of artists includes Adil Hussain, Swanand Kirkire, Kubbra Sait, Arunoday Singh, Hussain Dalal, Danish Husain, Hussain Haidry, Danish Sait and Harnidh Kaur.