MUMBAI: Private equity (PE) money is chasing the events and experiences economy in India-think KKR’s bet on ticketing and live entertainment platform BookMyShow or Blackstone’s investment in an Indian Premier League (IPL) franchise. Young consumers are now driving household spends and they are allocating a big chunk of their budgets to experiences.Consider this: at Travis Scott’s Delhi concert last year, nearly 100,000 tickets were sold within minutes. That roughly translates into India spending almost Rs 100 crore within minutes on a cultural phenomenon, analysts at EY said. Investors want to latch on to this trend early and take a share of these emerging consumption spaces.“Experiences over things are a mega-trend. This shift is happening across categories and segments. Consumption patterns of young people will never be the same as that of the previous generation,” said Vikram Kumaraswamy, partner at L Catterton.There are some numbers to substantiate the growing scale of the space-estimates by analysts at KPMG showed that the local live events and entertainment market touched Rs 13,600 crore (as of 2025). Riding on the cricket fan base, IPL ticket sales grew to about Rs 500 crore in 2025 from around Rs 120 crore in 2008, data sourced from investment bank Houlihan Lokey showed.The broader commercial sports economy covering media rights, athlete endorsements, sponsorships and franchise revenues is pegged at Rs 18,864 crore. “In an era increasingly dominated by AI, screen fatigue, and algorithm-driven digital consumption, live sports and fitness ecosystems stand out as the ultimate non-replicable, experiential asset class, which is why institutional private equity is aggressively leaning in,” said Sameer Jindal, MD at Houlihan Lokey.For PE investors, that irreplaceable real-world emotional pull translates into rare pricing power, highly resilient linear/digital media rights, diversified stadium and merchandise monetisation and an enduring consumer moat against the digital noise, Jindal added.It was a stellar 350% return made by CVC in four years by selling a majority stake in Gujarat Titans to Torrent Group that triggered fresh PE interest in IPL. “As our demography is changing and the whole social media world is creating a very different consumer response to everything… we as investors need to find the right opportunities to participate in and benefit from the underlying growth,” said Narendra Ostawal, MD and head of India PE at Warburg Pincus.Businesses linked to providing experiences will do better. Even firms having a play in the product side will try and associate their brands with experiences. For instance, a brand could promote healthy snacking during a sports event, said Kumaraswamy. L Catterton will invest in businesses building around propositions such as better home experiences, travel and fitness.“The returns profile for new businesses are not that straightforward. The consumer acquisition cost is high. We have to make sure we invest in businesses that have the operating leverage to grow sustainably in the long-run,” Kumaraswamy said.
