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News18
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- News18
Zakir Khan to Embark On India's Largest-Ever Stand-Up Comedy Tour Across 60+ Cities
Last Updated: Zakir Khan signs India's largest stand-up comedy tour deal with TribeVibe and OML, spanning 60+ cities and 160,000+ fans. A milestone moment for Indian live entertainment. In what is being hailed as a game-changing moment for India's live entertainment landscape, stand-up icon Zakir Khan has signed a historic deal with TribeVibe, a BookMyShow enterprise, and Only Much Louder (OML), to launch the biggest comedy tour India has ever witnessed. The tour will cover over 60 cities, reaching more than 160,000 fans, making it the largest stand-up comedy tour ever by an Indian comedian. With this unprecedented collaboration, Zakir Khan continues to redefine the boundaries of Indian comedy. Known for his unmatched storytelling and relatability, Zakir will now take his signature brand of humour across the length and breadth of the country—from bustling metros to emerging towns—setting a new benchmark for the genre. The tour represents more than just numbers. It embodies a strategic alliance between OML's talent management, BookMyShow's audience insights, and TribeVibe's grassroots production strength, which collectively aim to democratise access to live comedy beyond traditional urban circuits. By reaching audiences in lesser-served regions, the initiative reflects India's growing appetite for quality homegrown entertainment. 'This isn't just a personal milestone," Zakir said. 'It's a celebration of how far Indian stand-up has come. I've always dreamt of comedy being treated like mainstream entertainment—and this partnership is a massive step toward that. This is about taking our stories everywhere they deserve to be heard." TribeVibe's CEO Shoven Shah called the partnership a 'new form of cultural consumption" and said Zakir was the perfect artist to lead this vision. 'We've always believed in democratising great experiences. Doing a 60-city tour is about proving that India is ready to host and celebrate entertainment at this scale," he added. OML's Rishabh Nahar, SVP, echoed the sentiment, calling the tour a 'blueprint for the future" of Indian live entertainment. 'It's about building a sustainable touring economy that matches the ambition of global markets—where data guides decisions and artists build legacies," he said. The tour is expected to roll out in phases, with cities and dates to be announced soon. For fans, it signals not just an opportunity to see Zakir live but to witness Indian stand-up comedy claiming its rightful place on the cultural mainstage. First Published:
Hindustan Times
09-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Hindustan Times
Live events business set to get buzzier
You assume that Shoven Shah, founder and CEO of TribeVibe Entertainment will assert that GenZ is driving the live experience business in India given that his company has organized college fests and gigs in more than 75 cities. But Shah says India's live events business is not growing because of any one consumer segment. 'People across age groups are thronging live events depending on their tastes. For instance, the Sunburn music festival draws a slightly older audience. Basically, post-covid, people are consuming more content, spending more money buying tickets to enjoy both international and domestic artists. Overall, from an industry point of view all events are doing better,' he says. Shah's confidence stems from the 120% jump his business has seen after BookMyShow acquired a majority stake in TribeVibe in 2022 and he started curating all large-scale domestic music and comic tours for the platform. TribeVibe's rise reflects the boom in the organised segment of India's live events industry which saw a 15% jump in 2024 and was valued at ₹20,861 crore, according to a white paper released at the World Audio Visual and Entertainment Summit (WAVES) in Mumbai last week. Commissioned by the information and broadcasting ministry, the white paper was prepared by EventFAQS Media. It provides a snapshot of emerging trends marking 2024-25 as the turning point with the successful return to India of global icons like Coldplay, Ed Sheeran, Dua Lipa and Bryan Adams. Rahul Ganjoo, CEO of live events firm District by Zomato, says, this rapidly expanding sector is driven by changing consumer preferences, evident in an increasingly inclusive audience that extends beyond traditional urban and age-defined groups. 'There's a growing consumer desire for live artist performances and increasing interest in immersive social experiences,' he adds. The white paper underlines the rise of event tourism, with nearly half a million attendees travelling specifically for live music shows, pointing to the emergence of music tourism economy. The Coldplay concert in Ahmedabad for instance was attended by more than 2.2 lakh people over two days with 86% attendees travelling from outside Ahmedabad for the show, it says. Also, premium ticketing for elite experiences saw 100% year-on-year growth, indicating love for exclusivity as evident in the price of Coldplay tickets that ranged from ₹3,500 for general access to more than ₹25,000 for the VIP experience tiers. Hospitality packages for the concert reportedly crossed ₹1 lakh per guest, the white paper says. 'The demand for live events is no longer limited to major metropolitan areas, with artists showing more inclination to tour Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities, as demonstrated by the strong public response to tours by Diljit Dosanjh and Bryan Adams,' Ganjoo says. 'Indore, Kochi, Chandigarh, Jaipur, Lucknow, Guwahati, and Surat are now regularly hosting large concerts and IPs,' the white paper notes. TribeVibe's Shah says audiences in smaller towns are beginning to spend on music and stand-up comedy shows. The music and comedy fest he curated especially for GenZ that toured five smaller cities, saw Kota in Rajasthan selling 9,000 tickets. His next big gig is Zakir Khan's stand-up comedy tour across 30-40 cities The white paper points to the rise of regional artists as another promising trend. Diljit Dosanjh (Punjabi), Anirudh Ravichander (Tamil), Sid Sriram (Tamil/Telugu/English), and Yuvan Shankar Raja (Tamil) tour across North, West, and South India, performing to packed crowds in cities where their native language is not dominant, it says. The increasing popularity of live experiences has forced businesses to sit up and take note. BookMyShow invested in TribeVibe, Zomato bought Paytm Insider and rebranded it District and Warner Music India picked a minority stake in ticketing and live events platform SkillBox. In December, the India Today Group launched an entertainment-experiential vertical Stage Aaj Tak to curate and organize music concerts, theatre and stand-up comedy shows. International event companies are also keen to enter India, says Shah. The white paper says India's live events landscape is transforming into an important pillar of the country's cultural and creative economy. That explains why it found a mention in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's speech at WAVES: 'India's creative economy can increase its contribution to GDP in the coming years…There are many possibilities before us for the industry related to Live Concerts,' he said in his opening remarks.
Mint
24-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Mint
These small towns are turning into growth engines for live events
The live events industry that saw a gradual recovery after the covid pandemic is witnessing significant draw from smaller venues in Tier 2 and Tier 3 markets. Industry experts say these events, including college festivals and low-scale stand-up and influencer specials, are easier to put together than top-tier concerts with big artists. The traction is impressive, especially for local names, since these territories are not saturated the way metros are, which see much higher frequency of shows and events. A young, emerging class of upwardly mobile Indians is driving this surge in cities like Surat, Jaipur, Mysuru, and Guwahati. 'We're witnessing a massive shift in how India consumes live entertainment, with the decentralisation of entertainment playing a pivotal role. Live events are no longer restricted to the top metros. There's a thriving greenfield opportunity in tier 2 and 3 markets , where the demand for live experiences, especially in music and comedy, is surging," said Shoven Shah, founder and CEO, TribeVibe Entertainment Pvt. Ltd, a BookMyShow enterprise that specialises in college festivals. Shah said colleges are right at the centre of this movement, adding that TribeVibe was launched to cater specifically to this high-intent, high-energy Gen Z audience and to bridge a longstanding gap in the college entertainment ecosystem . It has executed over 2,000-2,500 college shows, collaborating with 750-plus college festivals. Further, the company wants to take artists on extensive 15-plus city tours and scale up to 25 cities. Markets like Surat, Ahmedabad, and other regional centres have shown exceptional turnout, especially for local language and regional artists, revealing the immense untapped potential beyond metros, Shah said. Siddhartha Chaturvedi, founder CEO, Event Crafter and general secretary of EEMA (Event and Entertainment Management Association), agreed that regional artists and smaller YouTube names have turned superstars and are well identified by local communities in Tier 3 cities. 'Colleges are definitely a hotspot, as are cafes and religious nights," Chaturvedi pointed out. Smaller markets are seeing tremendous traction because the frequency of large-scale entertainment in cities like Indore or Jaipur is significantly lower than in metros like Mumbai or Delhi, according to Tej Brar, head of festivals, NODWIN Gaming India. 'So, when a major event does happen in these regions, it generates a natural sense of excitement and anticipation. Second, these markets are witnessing a surge in an aspirational, upwardly mobile middle class with increasing access to disposable income. This combination makes smaller cities highly promising for large-format shows. Our experience in cities like Mysuru, Guwahati, and others has reinforced this belief," Brar added. Entertainment industry experts emphasize there's a fast-growing roster of artists , even beyond regional names, who are enthusiastic about exploring these markets. From comics like Zakir Khan to music acts spanning indie, Bollywood, hip-hop, and electronic genres, there's a clear appetite to perform where demand is intensifying. Smaller markets often come with unique challenges like limited infrastructure, logistical constraints and a lack of established event ecosystems, which can pose significant hurdles. There is tremendous economic and cultural potential in building this live entertainment ecosystem and to fully tap its potential, all stakeholders, including local and state authorities across various regulatory aspects must lend their support and come together to make the hosting and organising of events a more streamlined process, said Anil Makhija, chief operating officer - live entertainment and venues, BookMyShow. 'Our approach for smaller cities is rooted in building strong partnerships with local authorities and stakeholders to overcome infrastructural and regulatory challenges," said Karan Singh, CEO, Sunburn. The company hosted Afrojack in Shillong and Timmy Trumpet in Pune earlier this year. It also took Alan Walker's WalkerWorld tour to cities such as Bhubaneswar, Guwahati, and Jaipur. This May, it is launching the first edition of Sunburn Summer Fest in Shillong and Bengaluru. 'Young people have decided that experiences really excite them. They are not about material possessions as much as they are about actually having experiences. And therefore, that's where they are spending the money," said Roshan Abbas, founder of performing arts collective Kommune. Smaller cities and colleges now have budgets equivalent to big cities and, in some cases, end up spending close to a crore on artists for their festivals, Abbas added, though most artists do a discounted college rate, which is about 30-40% lower than their market rate.
