With its third edition of its offline food carnival Zomaland, food discovery and delivery major Zomato has major plans for its events segment. Zomato forayed into events in December 2018 with the first edition of Zomaland being held in Delhi, followed by Pune.
Zomaland is a food and entertainment carnival that brings together some of the top eateries, musicians, DJs, comedians, and interactive installations and carnival games, under one roof. It is like the offline version of its Zomato Collections, where it curates and brings the best restaurants in the city together.
According to Chaitanya Mathur, Global Head of Zomato Live, one of Zomato’s key focuses is to increase the number of people dining out, as well as increase the share of meals eaten out of the home. The company is using Zomato Events and Zomaland to fill this gap in its dine-out business.
“With Zomaland we are striving to bring what Zomato stands for online to the offline space and interact with our consumers. As the food industry in India grows, we see more and more people attending such events simply because of the value they add to the experience of eating,” he adds.
If its food, Zomato wants to be there. And through Zomaland, and by extension Zomato Live/Events, it is looking to contributes towards three of its focus areas: building a new user experience, enhancing the dine out selection and fueling the growth of the restaurant industry. This in turn is bound to increase business for Zomato both on the restaurant discovery side and on the food delivery part.
It has already seen immense success in the Delhi and Pune editions. “Zomaland Delhi, the first of its kind, really helped us set the pace, and both events were immensely enjoyed by the crowd, our restaurant partners and the artists alike. The combined footfall for both events reached a staggering 60,000 people,” Chaitanya adds.
For the Bengaluru event, which is currently underway, Zomato claims that it sold 20,000 tickets even before the event began.
Going forward, Zomato Events wants to not only take Zomaland to several other cities, but also experiment with more concepts, across not just India but also other countries where it has a presence.
“We will be exploring this space with multiple varieties of events - both large scale & mid-size ones that cater to every kind of palate & age group,” Chaitanya says.
The Bengaluru event, apart from 60 eateries including Via Milano, Fish Chain, The Wok Shop, Thai Chy, Indiana Burgers, Aubree, Biggies Burger, Delhi Highway, AB’s Absolute Barbecues, Apsara Ice-cream, The Waffle Press and Artinci, also has several artists performing. Performances include Jay Sean, the original Gully Boy - Divine, Ritviz, popular indie-band ‘When Chai Met Toast’, renowned Hindi rock band ‘The Local Train’, and popular stand-up comics like Varun Thakur and Rohan Joshi.