In a landmark move set to transform India’s live entertainment industry, BookMyShow Live, the live entertainment experiential division of BookMyShow, brings to India a never-seen-before, cutting-edge stage that promises an exemplary production value for an unmatchable consumer experience.
Acquired from Star Live, global live event infrastructure leader, the VerTech Stage represents a significant engineering milestone and is the world’s first all-steel stage to feature on the Indian live entertainment landscape.
The VerTech stage (derived from Versatile Technology), marks a departure from traditional aluminium structures, offering unprecedented performance capability, sustainability, and resilience. Its galvanised steel composition ensures maximum durability, making it an ideal choice for India’s diverse and largely tropical climate, providing superior weather protection and performance against wind, rain, and heat especially for the largest scales of production.
BookMyShow Live will unveil this market-first mammoth stage at Lollapalooza India 2024, produced and promoted by the platform. Festival attendees will witness this historic moment of the stage unveil at the BUDX main stage of Lollapalooza India 2024 featuring headliner acts including Jonas Brothers and Sting. Brought to India by BookMyShow Live, the VerTech stage came to the shores of Mumbai from the UK in sixteen enormous 40-feet containers. The Mahalaxmi Race Course reverberated with cranes, yellow-hatted mechanics, engineers and technicians, meticulously assembling the stage, piece by piece to now proudly boast, a loading capacity of 50 tonnes, a massive increase from the conventional 15 tonnes that live event stages in India typically have a capacity for.
A unique selling point of the VerTech stage is its seamless structure, integrating towers mechanically into the substructure and a self-sustaining ecosystem, unlike any other in India. This unified design results in a robust setup capable of withstanding greater wind speeds and ever more complex production demands, including elaborate video technology and screens. Star Live’s VerTech range provides ultimate flexibility for a temporary stage structure with over 100 different configurations executed flawlessly, with the component range also able to deliver class-leading ground support for indoor and outdoor applications.
It is no secret that India has become a high-potential, high-demand market for live entertainment experiences. BookMyShow’s Best of 2023 – #EntertainmentOnASpree report revealed that Live Entertainment took centre stage with a footfall of 13.5 million entertainment-seeking audiences creating a ‘momentous year’ choosing to step out for live events throughout last year. In its journey to lead the pack for accessible, extravagant, and globally acclaimed live entertainment productions and therefore experiences for the country, BookMyShow’s investment across significant areas to build this ecosystem has always been ahead of the curve. India’s leading entertainment destination’s visionary step in investing in the VerTech stage system signals a bright future for the music and live event industry in the country, aligning it with international safety and production standards and unlocking a world of opportunities for artists and fans alike. Internationally renowned and popular artists such as Taylor Swift, Madonna, Adele, The Rolling Stones, Justine Timberlake, Foo Fighters, Sir Elton John and more have performed on the VerTech stage that matched the gigantic production sets and scale requirements for their performances.
Speaking on this market-first move, Owen Roncon, Chief of Business – Live Events, BookMyShow, said, “The Indian live entertainment industry is at the cusp of a revolution signalled by a strategically woven mix of innovation, evolution and technology upscaling. This is exactly the mantra we’re following at BookMyShow Live to pave the way for curated live entertainment experiences that are unparalleled, unmatched and unmissable. With each experience, our work is focussed towards creating a new benchmark in the industry. Consumers are always at the heart of everything we do at BookMyShow and we are concentrating all our efforts in readying India for artists and performances from across the globe, delivering world-class entertainment on our stage, for our audiences that actively seek quality experiences in their leisure time. Bringing the iconic VerTech stage from Star Live to India furthered these efforts of a world-class platform for world-class artists and has opened up a sea of possible opportunities while elevating the industry standard of technical prowess, production value and sustainability.”
“As we mark this milestone with Book My Show, Star Live is proud to be a part of revolutionising India’s music events landscape. This exclusive collaboration not only reflects our commitment to innovation and sustainability but also showcases the immense potential of our global partnerships in enhancing the live entertainment experience” said, Grahame Muir, CEO of Star Live.
In alignment with the #LollaForChange initiative, the VerTech stage comprises over 95% reusability of materials from show to show, with sustainability at its core. The ingenious design incorporates custom-designed handling frames and crates for efficient transportation and rapid setup, reflecting Star Live’s commitment to innovation and environmental responsibility, opening up a massive pool of opportunities for BookMyShow Live to bring widen its ability to bring bigger A-star international talent requiring a mammoth production set-up, to India.
About BookMyShow:
Launched in 2007, BookMyShow, owned and operated by Big Tree Entertainment Pvt. Ltd. (founded in 1999), is India’s leading entertainment destination with global operations and the one-stop shop for every entertainment need. The firm is present in over 700 towns and cities in India and works with partners across the industry to provide unmatched entertainment experiences to millions of customers. Over the years, the company has evolved from a purely online ticketing platform for movies across 7,000 plus screens, to end-to-end management of live entertainment events including music concerts, live performances, theatricals, sports and more, all accomplished at par with global standards. Some of the key properties that BookMyShow Live, the live entertainment experiential division of BookMyShow, has brought to its markets over the past few years include Lollapalooza India, Backstreet Boys’ DNA World Tour, Post Malone’s debut India show at the Feeding India concert, U2’s The Joshua Tree Tour, NBA’s debut games in India, Disney’s Aladdin, Cirque du Soleil BAZZAR as also international artists such as Coldplay, Ed Sheeran, Justin Bieber to name a few.
BookMyShow is invested in providing the best user experience, whether on-ground or online and to that effect, launched BookMyShow Stream, India’s largest home-grown transactional video-on-demand (TVOD) platform hosting award-winning and critically acclaimed content from around the world, complementing its cinemas business. BookMyShow also houses India’s most extensive organic reviews and ratings engine for movies and has driven technology innovations, such as the m-ticket and Movie Mode, impacting tens of millions of users and the industry at large. With continued support from marquee investors like TPG Growth, Stripes Group, Elevation Capital (formerly SAIF Partners), Accel and Network18, BookMyShow has constantly demonstrated category leadership, growing beyond India with operations in Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, UAE and Sri Lanka. BookMyShow is also committed to society at large, by way of its charity initiative BookASmile, which supports special causes to enrich the lives of the less fortunate across India through entertainment-led experiences.
