E365 is one of the most successful artiste and concert management agencies of eastern India. With a unique combination of 360-degree services backed by its group companies, E365 can provide a one-stop solution for B2B or B2C clients, by integrating technology, content, talents and strategy.
In an exclusive interview with EVENTFAQS Media, Kinjal Bhattacharya, Founder & CEO, E365 India Pvt Ltd group of companies, shares insights on his 15-year journey in the industry, challenges faced, E365 entering the IP space, key areas to function, progressive plans, future projects and more.
You are celebrating 15 years of E365; take us through your journey of how E365 has grown over the years since its inception.
We had started up on Valentine’s Day of 2006, a time when the word ‘start-up’ was not discovered. A few of us engineering and media students, still in college, came together to lay the foundation of E365. Back then, it was more of a part-time passion economy, that soon started to grow organically over the years. Having started off with campus festivals primarily, we were soon taking up opportunities that came our way in activations and MICE too. Over the years, we branched out with dedicated verticals for talent management (BandEdge Talent Agency Pvt. Ltd., www.bandedge.in), international live music IP (THE Festival, www.thefestival.in), social event management (Bandhan Crafting Memories, www.bandhansocial.com), influencer marketing platform (Ovonts Technologies Pvt. Ltd., www.ovonts.com), music publishing and distribution (BandEdge Music) and post advertising (Agencywaale, www.agencywaale.com). Starting off from Kolkata, we have now branched out to Mumbai, Dhaka, Chittagong and Hyderabad, with plans of setting up our offices soon in Delhi, Bengaluru and Guwahati too. It has been an absolutely organic journey, where opportunities have given birth to our different verticals. We have learnt on the go, and implemented our learnings into business every day during the last 15 years. The year 2018 saw us delivering 920+ projects across all verticals, 2019 had the figure higher at 1060+, 2020 taught us how boring it is to spend almost an entire year full of holidays! There have been ups and downs, successes and failures, struggles and celebrations, but looking back at our journey in retrospective, today we can’t complain at all.
What were the biggest challenges faced during these years and how did E365 address them?
When we started off in 2006, there was no precedent for us to look upto in the city; there was no formal education on the subject also, as the entire industry was taking birth in Kolkata around that time. Life for us was even more difficult (albeit more exciting too) as we kept on experimenting with what all we could deliver. Whether it was introducing new technology in college fests, selling out a 4,000 capacity ‘Poets Of The Fall’ concert in 36 hours flat, pulling off a massive international concert within 21 days with the Government opposing it, going ahead with a NYE gig with ‘Infected Mushroom’ even though the city was water-logged till the knees, or creating a never-before experience with ‘Michael Learns To Rock’ in the heart of the city, or getting bands from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh for the first time on the same stage, we kept on pushing our boundaries with every single project that we bagged. We kept on learning on the go, whether it was music publishing, wedding planning, influencer marketing or digital advertising. We looked for opportunities in every hurdle that we faced. The lockdown was possibly the biggest threat to our very existence as a group of companies, but we faced it with guts and grit as always, and over months, we educated ourselves to create sanitisation tunnels, digital concerts, virtual launches, influencer marketing programmes, OLV and TVC production- and we were never sitting idle during the pandemic. I believe our team members are assets for the business, all of them are handpicked, highly educated and down to earth, and always learning on the go- they are our backbone!
E365 has entered the IP space with a few successful events; tell us how important are those IPs in today’s time?
Across the years, we launched THE Festival with 13 editions like Sound Of Peace, Moshpit Mayhem, Neon Splash, Desi Beats, Sonic Boom, Live & Loud, Celebrating Woodstock, All For Bengal, that have seen more than 200 artistes from all over the world create mega musical experiences in Kolkata. Those IPs are extremely important; however, we are figuring out ways to take our IPs on a hybrid environment so as to build assets that have a direct impact on our asset library. We plan to build a licensing business on top of our IP assets in the days to come, although this is not an immediate priority for us, but something definitely on the roadmap of the upcoming 18 months. Technology will play a vital role in how we reintroduce our IPs in a post pandemic world.
Tell us about your progressive plans for existing and future projects including IPs.
We are investing heavily with new independent units in place for –
1) Influencer programmes
2) Virtual events
3) Branded content
4) Data and analytics (Knowledge assets)
5) IPs (content assets, virtual products, etc.)
2021 and 2022 will have our full focus on how we can develop our digital businesses both horizontally and vertically.
Virtual events being the new normal in the industry, how do you position E365, and what will be your key focus areas to function?
We see virtual events and hybrid events to be the future of events with measurable impact on goals and objectives of brands. We are positioning ourselves to be a premium provider of such solutions powered by our knowledge assets. Till now, we have seen measurable growth on the virtual event solutions working on interesting use cases across – increasing consumer value, branding, sales enablement, employer branding and employee engagement.
