Ashish Hemrajani, the founder and CEO of Big Tree Entertainment Pvt Ltd, which operates India’s leading entertainment platform BookMyShow, has transformed the ticketing landscape in India. According to Pollstar, under his leadership, BookMyShow now sells close to 20 million tickets per month, employs over 1,400 staff, and has a presence in over 650 towns and cities across India, as well as offices in Sri Lanka, Singapore, Malaysia, Dubai, Jakarta, and more.
Hemrajani’s journey began in the Juhu district of Mumbai, where he grew up. His entrepreneurial spirit was ignited during a backpacking trip to Botswana, South Africa, where he encountered the concept of online ticketing. Inspired by the convenience it offered, he returned to Mumbai and, along with his friends Parikshit Dar and Rajesh Balpande, laid the foundation for Big Tree Entertainment in 1999, securing initial investment from Chase Capital Partners JPMorgan.
“The idea was to build India’s live entertainment ticketing business as well as the movie ticketing business, because movies is a big use case India,” he tells Pollstar. “It’s a hot country, people like to be in an air-conditioned environment. It’s the cheapest form of indoor entertainment that you can get anywhere in the world.”
Building BookMyShow
The idea was to build a comprehensive ticketing service catering to both live entertainment and movies, a popular form of indoor entertainment in India. BookMyShow initially focused on cinema tickets, tapping into the diverse regional movie industries across India.
However, the early 2000s posed significant challenges. The Dotcom bubble burst, and with limited internet and credit card penetration, the business model had to adapt.
“So, in 2002, the carpet was pulled from under us. We went from 150 people down to six. I got a six-month severance for all the employees, I tried to place as many people as I could at new jobs through my personal contacts, bought back the company and started from scratch,” he explains.
Hemrajani and his team pivoted to home-delivering tickets and eventually scaled down to a core team of six. Despite these setbacks, Hemrajani’s vision and perseverance paid off.
Strategic Investments and Growth
In 2007, Network18’s investment marked a turning point, followed by significant investments from Accel Partners, SAIF Partners, Stripes Group, and TPG Growth, raising a total of $224.5 million. These investments enabled BookMyShow to expand its offerings and solidify its market position. The platform now attracts over 200 million customer visits and five billion page views each month, making it one of the largest ticketing companies globally.
BookMyShow has diversified into five key verticals beyond ticketing. The live entertainment sector includes event promotions and management, handling tours for top Indian artists like Arijit Singh and A.R. Rahman. The company also collaborates with international entities, such as Cirque du Soleil and the NBA, bringing Broadway style experiences to India.
“Today, in terms of ticketing, we get over 200 million customer visits on the platform with five billion page views each month. With our current run-rate we’re doing about 200 million tickets a year, which is about 18 to 20 million tickets a month” brags Hemrajani.
Moreover, BookMyShow invests in infrastructure to support these events, managing venues and integrating state-of-the-art technology for seamless operations. The company has also ventured into payments technology, owning 75% of DIY ticketing platform Townscript and investing in AtomX for cashless transactions.
“Culturally we’re as Silicon Valley, or as LA or New York-ish, as you can be. People come in shorts, we have two dogs in the company, Ivy and Brownie, strays that my son picked up. We’ve got a first-name basis culture, I don’t carry my title on my card,” says Hemrajani.
Through the BookASmile initiative, a small donation from each ticket sale funds various charitable activities, impacting over 200,000 lives across India. The company also fosters an inclusive workplace culture, challenging traditional hierarchies and promoting equality among employees.
India’s rapid technological advancements, particularly the Unified Payments Interface and the expansion of Jio’s 4G network, have significantly boosted BookMyShow’s growth. The platform aims to be the go-to destination for all out-of-home entertainment needs in India, continuing to innovate and expand its offerings.
“Jio, which is the world’s most expensive startup and part of the Reliance Group – our investors – spent $24 billion on building the world’s biggest 4G LTE network, which went from zero to 350 million [subscribers] in under 24 months. 90 percent of the country’s data today goes through Jio,” Hemrajani explains, adding that “YouTube has grown 14-times in the last two years on the back of Jio.”
With a population of 1.3 billion and a growing appetite for diverse entertainment, Hemrajani believes that BookMyShow is just getting started. The company’s journey reflects a blend of strategic vision, resilience, and a commitment to societal impact, positioning it as a key player in the global entertainment industry.
