Have you made a trip abroad to attend a live event in 2023 or 2024?

Did you have the option of attending the same (or equivalent) event in India?

Why did you choose not to attend the same event in India?

These were the three main questions we posed to listeners of Two by Two in a recent survey to understand the biggest problems with hosting events—big or small—in India.

Then we took all the people who said yes and looked at the events that they said they went outside India to attend, even though options for it existed inside India. It had a lot of concerts, comprising a long list of musicians. Dua Lipa in Singapore, Ed Sheeran in Malaysia and a sea of Coldplay because it's Coldplay season, Coldplay's concert in Singapore, Coldplay in Dubai, Coldplay in Barcelona, Coldplay in Thailand, Coldplay in Bangkok, Ben Böhmer who had performed in India in late December last year but people chose to attend his shows outside India instead. Then we had Indian performers who people refused to attend in India and went abroad, Diljit in Bombay. There was a list of cricket matches in that list as well. Stand-up acts from Vir Das, which people chose to attend in the U.S. instead of attending in India. The most interesting entry we saw was a half-marathon. People are choosing to attend half marathons outside India instead of attending them in India.

In this week’s episode, we get to the reasons why this is the ultimate form of Indians paying for convenience over availability.

Hosts Rohin Dharmakumar and Praveen Gopal Krishnan sit down with Shreyas Srinivasan, former Chief Product Officer at Paytm* and founder of Paytm Insider, which has now been acquired by Zomato and rebranded as District, and Sudhir Syal, former CEO of Bookmyshow Indonesia and Bookmyshow Middle East, to understand where India falls short in hosting events at scale.

Welcome to episode 29 of Two by Two.

*Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma is an investor in The Ken.

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Additional reading:

The Nutgraf: Going out of India is easier than going out in India

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Help us find interesting women guests by filling out this survey - https://theken.typeform.com/to/KH0EOLGo

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This episode of Two by Two was produced by Hari Krishna. Rajiv CN, our resident sound engineer, mixed and mastered this episode.

If you liked this episode of Two by Two, do share it with like-minded individuals who would be interested in listening to the episode. And if you have more thoughts on the discussion, we’d love to hear your arguments as well. You can write to us at [email protected].