Charting out the future moves for the Event & Entertainment Management Association (EEMA) for the events and experiential marketing industry in 2025, Ankur Kalra, Founder & CEO, Vibgyor Experiential who also stepped into the shoes as General Secretary, EEMA in September this year, tells that in the initial days, in the 90s, event management was a very different term.
From the last to the first
“We were always treated as the last vendor. We were never invited to meetings. We were just told this is what needs to be done. And we had to only follow instructions. We never had a voice. We never had an opinion. We were just the last-mile executors. And a lot has changed ever since.
In the early 2000s, we started getting a voice. We started getting a seat at the table. People started valuing the role that an experiential marketer. We were also invited to strategy meetings. We sat along with PR agencies, advertising agencies and media agencies and became part of the strategy. And that is when I believe that the real nature of the term event management changed to experiential marketing.”
Juggling numbers
Today, he terms it the business of experiences, which encompasses corporate events (the most well-known form of events), festivals, concerts, IPs, live entertainment, MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions), sports events (which is a huge market and waiting to burst at the scenes), social events and government events.
He brought out that the total size of the corporate events sector in India currently is estimated to be Rs 92,000 crores, and this space is growing at 90 per cent, per annum. “So today it is virtually impossible that any consumer brand does not have an experiential budget. Twenty years ago they would probably spend 1 per cent of their total budget on experiential initiatives. Today most brands will have a budget of 15 to 25 per cent of their total spending in the experiential space,” he clarifies.
The festivals, IPs and live space, in a study conducted in early 2024, and ever since this space has exploded. This industry was pegged at about Rs 3000 crores in early 2024 and it is growing at 30 per cent - this is the space which is growing the fastest in our industry. “We've seen what has happened with Diljit Dosanjh’s and Karan Aujla’s concerts, along with all the other concerts that are happening. And this space is the one which has become the most sought-after space in the live events industry.”
Talking about the MICE industry which is related to travel, air booking, events outside the country and incentive events – Kalra mentioned that the size of this is Rs 37, 576 crores as per leading consultancy firms and it's growing at 21 per cent growth rate, annually.
The sports event space which has all the IPLs, the Kabaddi Leagues and the Kho Kho Leagues, this space is worth Rs 60,000 crores. It's growing at a rate of 14 per cent per annum, he cited.
The size of the social event space in India is Rs 3,85,000 crores which consists of weddings, pre-wedding celebrations, anniversaries, etc. – the organised space. And it is growing at 17 per cent, per annum.
With the Indian government actually being one of the largest spenders and the largest clients in the country, government events are pegged at Rs 32,000 crores currently and growing very fast at a rate of 24 per cent. He expects this number to go up in the next two years, and become Rs 60,000 crores, thus expecting this to double in size very soon.
These numbers peg the total size of this industry between Rs 5 to 6 lakh crores. "If we include all these segments and globally, we were told by our consultancy firm that the number till 2028 is expected to reach US$ 1552 billion. I don't think our calculators can calculate this in Indian currency, but it's a hell of a number. So this is the right time to be in the live entertainment space,” he suggests.
Ripe Time in Experiential Marketing
Kalra mentioned that this is the right time to be in the experiential marketing space because none of the other media industries would be growing at this rate. None of the other sections of the media industry would grow at this rate. Almost every segment of the Indian experiential marketing industry is growing at almost a 20 per cent growth rate year on year.
Talking at the exchange4media Red Carpet Experiential Marketing Summit 2024 which took place on 27 December, 2024 at the Eros Hotel in the capital, he wrapped up by drawing attention to the challenges in the Indian experiential marketing industry – values and infrastructure, getting the Indian experiential marketing industry an industry status and recognition, scaling up of agencies and companies in this space, high-quality talent and retaining high-quality talent, education and upskilling of talent in this industry, issues of health, safety and sustainability, as well as drawing attention to the formation of EEMA as a unified voice for the events and experiential marketing industry in India.
