Coldplay, Post Malone and the concert economy: BookMyShow's Naman Pugalia on why India's live music boom is only getting bigger

When Post Malone performed in Guwahati, the concert became more than a night of live music. It turned into a city-wide economic event, drawing visitors from across India and directing spending towards travel, hotels, restaurants and local businesses.

Naman Pugalia, chief business officer for live events at BookMyShow, said the single-day event created an estimated economic opportunity of ₹43 crore for Guwahati.

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The concert attracted approximately 20,000 people. More than half of them travelled from outside the city, with the audience arriving from over 200 cities and towns.

An EY-Parthenon report, prepared in collaboration with BookMyShow, estimates that for every ₹100 spent on a ticket to Post Malone’s concert, an additional ₹899 was spent on travel, accommodation, food and local businesses.

That ratio captures the changing economics of India’s concert boom. The ticket is increasingly becoming only the first expense in a much longer journey.

The concert becomes the destination

“When an artist has a meaningful following, the concert often becomes the anchor for a much larger journey, bringing together travel, hospitality, dining and local experiences,” Pugalia said.

Guwahati offered a clear example of that shift. The concert brought audiences into the city from across the country and created a ripple effect beyond the venue. For visitors, the event involved not only watching a performer but also travelling, finding accommodation, eating out and spending time in the host city.

“Guwahati is a particularly important example,” Pugalia said. “The single-day event turned into an economic opportunity of ₹43 crore. More than half of the approximately 20,000 attendees travelled from outside Guwahati, arriving from over 200 cities and towns.”

The findings were part of a joint report by BookMyShow, the Assam Tourism Development Corporation and EY-Parthenon on the impact of the concert on Guwahati and the wider northeastern region.

Pugalia said the event was significant not only for Assam but also for the wider Northeast, as it demonstrated that cities beyond India’s traditional concert markets could attract large audiences.

The opportunity, however, comes with practical challenges. Cities hoping to attract large concerts need suitable venues, better connectivity, reliable infrastructure and systems for crowd management and safety.

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BookMyShow is developing new live-event markets through memoranda of understanding with state governments and partnerships with local authorities.

“The long-term opportunity is not simply to bring a marquee artist to a new city, but to build an ecosystem that allows high-quality experiences to return consistently,” Pugalia said.

From possessions to memories

The Guwahati concert also fits into a broader change in how Indian audiences view entertainment spending.

BookMyShow’s OOO: Offline. Outdoors. Out Loud. India’s Live Culture 2025–2026 report found that 39% of respondents consciously chose experiences over possessions, while 48% said memories were priceless. For 43% of respondents, the appeal of a live event was partly the possibility that they might not get another chance to attend the same show.

The findings suggest that concerts are being planned as significant personal experiences. Calendars, budgets, travel plans and group conversations can begin revolving around a show as soon as the line-up is announced.

BookMyShow’s report describes this behaviour as “Concert Brain”—the point at which a show begins influencing people’s plans well before the event takes place.

Yet the report challenges the idea that fear of missing out is the main force behind the concert boom. Only 4% of respondents cited FOMO as a reason for attending a live show.

Pugalia said the stronger draw was the connection between an audience and an artist, and the collective experience created when thousands of people respond to the same music at the same time.

“A major show may carry cultural currency, but its deeper value lies in the shared experience—the collective energy of an audience responding to the same music, often with thousands of strangers feeling connected in that moment,” he said.

A discovery platform for new artists

Concerts are also changing how audiences discover music.

The report found that 72% of respondents had discovered a new artist at a live show. Among respondents from tier-2 cities, the figure was 70%.

That makes live events more than a platform for established international performers. Festivals, local acts and a wider touring circuit can help audiences encounter artists they may not otherwise have listened to.

The collective nature of the experience is central to that appeal. For 66% of respondents, the moment that gave them “chills” at a concert was when the crowd sang a chorus together.

Pugalia said India’s concert market would need greater depth across artists, genres, formats and geographies if the current momentum was to last.

“Major international tours have definitely played an important role in accelerating India’s live entertainment market,” he said. “But a healthy market cannot depend on a handful of headline performances; it needs depth across artists, genres, formats and geographies to make this a sustainable ecosystem.”

The show does not end when the lights go out

For many concert-goers, the emotional experience continues long after they leave the venue.

The report found that 46% of respondents experienced post-concert blues every time, while 69% experienced some version of the feeling.

Emotional well-being was also a stated reason for attending live events. Forty-four per cent of respondents said they went to concerts to feel emotionally healed. Among millennials, the figure rose to 49%.

The report found that 67% of millennials listened to the artist’s music on their way home. Among Gen Z respondents, 53% experienced post-concert emptiness every time, while 46% tried to post about the experience within an hour.

The memory of a show can also become something physical. Forty per cent of respondents said they kept their concert wristbands as souvenirs, while another 40% turned them into smaller mementos.

From Guwahati to Ahmedabad

Guwahati is not an isolated example of the economic reach of major concerts.

A separate joint report by BookMyShow and EY-Parthenon found that Coldplay’s two Ahmedabad shows generated a cumulative economic impact of ₹641 crore across industries.

Together, the findings point to a concert economy that extends beyond tickets and venues. The value of a live event is increasingly being measured through the movement of people, money and attention across the city hosting it.

For India’s emerging concert destinations, the challenge now is to turn one-off successes into a reliable circuit—one that can bring audiences back, support local businesses and make live entertainment a recurring part of the city’s economy.

The BookMyShow report is based on an online survey of nearly 1,700 concert-goers aged 18 and above across 75 Indian cities. The survey was conducted over five weeks beginning June 10, 2026. Its findings represent the experiences of those surveyed and are not intended to reflect the views of every Indian concert-goer.