A fresh, disruptive medium of movie-going, VKAAO is a platform which allows viewers to select their preferred movie along with the location, date, and time of the screening, at any theatre of their choice.
VKAAO, which is an equal Join Venture (JV) between PVR and BookMyShow, recently completed two years. Kamal Gianchandani, CEO, PVR Pictures Ltd. speaks to Moneycontrol about the prospects of theatre-on-demand for the Indian audience.
Excerpts:
Q. How popular is theatre-on-demand in India?
A. As consumers are moving towards on-demand behaviour, they don’t want an exception in films too. People prefer content on appointment. Tugg, Gather, and Fanfare are popular options for theatre-on-demand outside India. But in India, we are the only players and it has been a good journey in the last two years. In 2017, we had 1600 shows on VKAAO, and in the calendar year of 2018, we showed more than 3000 films on demand.
We’ve had people proposing to their partners in VKAAO theatres too. There was this one time when a person booked the entire theatre and screened Ranbir Kapoor and Deepika Padukone starrer Yeh Jawani Hai Diwani, which was his partner’s favourite film and proposed to her. So people like these book the space and its offerings and use it for occasions close to their heart.
Q. How many screens do you have dedicated to VKAAO? Tell us about the whole concept.
A. With a library of over 500 movies, offering an equal mix of Hollywood, Bollywood and regional content, theatre-on-demand enables patrons to enjoy complete control of the movie viewing experience. Functioning through PVR Cinemas’ theatrical circuit and BookMyShow’s online presence, VKAAO has enabled global content reach to the smaller towns of the country. All our 675 screens can be used for this and every year we keep adding 100 odd screens to our inventory. That’s the whole point of VKAAO, where our patrons can choose whatever screen they want to. That is why we keep all the screens open to the option.
Q. How does one go about booking screens for VKAAO?
A. One has to put in a request on VKAAO’s website and then we share it on our platforms. Once we have a quorum of at least 25 percent occupancy we go ahead with the show. The minimum requirement is slightly higher for weekends. The price of the tickets is as much as any normal ticket would cost at that screen in that theatre.
Q. Tell us about the movies people want to keep seeing on demand?
A. In the last two years, VKAAO has released 210 films – 38 percent Hollywood, 47 percent Bollywood and 15 percent of regional content – across 2017 and 2018. Basis its analytics, the company has seen a rising demand for Hollywood content in Tier II and Tier III cities, where the metropolitan audiences have cherished the regional films more.
Film being the oldest and the most popular source of entertainment in India, this crowdsourced platform has set a new trend of making diverse and quality content easily accessible to the audience across the country. Some of the exclusive releases by VKAAO in the last two years are An Insignificant Man, Village Rockstars, A Fantastic Woman, The Salesman, and Pahuna. In Hindi, people have repeatedly requested timeless films like Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge and Chak De India.
What are your plans for 2019?
We will keep adding to PVR screens thereby making more screens available for VKAAO too. We are looking at aggressively scaling up the platform through promotions and all other initiatives taken. We are also looking at adding more films to our library. Thus, there would be growth in both content and the number of screens for VKAAO in 2019.
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