“The art of fulfilment is the ability to experience not only the thrill of the chase but also the magic of the moment, the unbridled joy of feeling truly alive.”
This is a quote by Tony Robbins, is an American author, life coach, and philanthropist. Why, you may ask, am I stating it as a preamble to a blog where I’m going to discuss avenues to learn about events? A simple yet significant reason is that life is just not about the pursuit of happiness, it is also about achieving happiness in the pursuit itself. In this day and age, we all live fast, unrelenting, stressful lives that hardly afford us moments of peace and solitude and calm. When was the last time you sat by yourself without any distractions of the mobile phone or the Internet or media and just did nothing? I can’t seem to recall many of those.
Art, culture and entertainment provide us an outlet, a much needed one, from the hustle and bustle of a fast paced life. They allow us to distress and relax. A movie, a music performance or a gig by your favorite artist, a theatre play, or even a workshop where you get to learn a new skill or hone one that you are passionate about are all opportunities to unwind at the end of a hard, grueling week or even a long day after work.
Many of us fall into the trap of not being able to decide what to do; whether it is choosing which movie to watch on movie night or which song to listen to when you’re jogging or even what to do on the weekend with your friends. Making a plan seems to be the hardest thing nowadays because we’re all spoilt for choice. We have WAY TOO many options at our disposal.
This blog right here intends to make life easier for you. Let’s have a look at all the platforms and avenues where we can find information about Upcoming Events in Pune related to art, culture and entertainment in the city.
BOOKMYSHOW
Let’s start with the big daddy of events. Bigtree Entertainment’s BookMyShow is India’s largest entertainment ticketing website. It is headquartered in Mumbai and within a decade of its inception, has made itself indispensable as a destination for movie and non-movie options like events, plays and sports.
The company presents their customers with endless options to purchase tickets for the latest movies, music concerts, plays, stand-up comic acts, and major sporting events to name a few. Tickets can be booked through various platforms like internet, mobile application, WAP and the in – house call center.
BookMyShow has partnerships with all major Indian production houses and studios with real time ticketing for major cinema chains like Inox, Big Cinemas, Cinemax, Fun Cinemas etc. 85% of all cinema tickets sold online are booked on BookMyShow, resulting in sales peaking up to 10 million plus tickets per month.
BookMyShow has ticketed for plays online and is the exclusive and permanent ticketing partners for theatre venues like Prithvi Theater, Mumbai, NCPA Mumbai, Indian Habitat Centre Delhi and Rangshankara Bangalore. BookMyShow has also ticketed live large format events and sport events such as ICL, city Marathons, etc.
Here are links for their social media and Internet presence:
Nobody on the planet might be a stranger to Facebook. We all know the social media behemoth and its presence in all fields of life. Facebook pages and groups are a great source of information for upcoming culture activities in Pune. For our city, there are a bunch of pages that you could follow to keep yourself updated constantly. Let’s have a look at some of these organizations and their pages:
- RAAH – A Literacy & Cultural Centre
- Gyaan Adab
- TIFA
- The Loft Forum
- Zaga
Facebook is a great place to also congregate with like-minded people to start groups or meetup circles or book clubs, etc. You can host your own events as well with the help of such a big platform.
RAAH
You must have definitely heard of this cultural centre in Pune in the Kondhwa area but might not know what it exactly does. Let’s shine a bit of light on this unique initiative. Raah is a cultural space for visual, performative and literary arts events near Kondhwa in Lullanagar, Pune. It is a catalyst for community development by providing a platform for expression. Raah falls under the aegis of The Raahat Foundation, a public charitable trust.
They engage in inclusive activities, cultural, educational, charitable and intellectual expansion. Raah is an ideal platform for nurturing and encouraging upcoming talent and youth. Raah nurtures new creative work and ideas while also showcasing old and established artistic work. You can find interesting events or workshops in all disciplines like theatre, music, literature and art here almost every alternate day. Another interesting thing to bear in mind is that most of the events that happen here are free of cost as it is a non-profit. Even if they are charged, it is a donation pass at a nominal paltry amount of Rs.50-100 is all.
It is perhaps one of the most active spaces for events in Pune. For one to know what events are going on or are coming up at Raah, one just needs to simply visit their Facebook page where they keep creating and updating events as well a plethora of information about the happenings. Or one can also log on to their Instagram page directly from your smartphone where they a have a bunch of pictures and videos of all the past events and relevant posts about the upcoming ones. They also keep their website events calendar up to date so one can also look that up if one wishes.
MEETUP
Meetup is a service used to organize online groups that host in-person events for people with similar interests. Meetup was founded in 2002 by Scott Heiferman and four co-founders. The company was acquired by WeWork in 2017 and remains headquartered in New York City.
Meetup is a website that allows users to organize get-togethers with others who enjoy the same activities. Some common examples include sports teams, book clubs, and social groups. By signing up, you can find a group that suits the activity you’re looking for, or create your own group to bring others to you.
The philosophy at Meetup is “when we get together and do the things that matter to us, we’re at our best.” If you are passionate about something, or need a group of people to do what you love, you should consider signing up today.
TOWNSCRIPT
Townscript is an online platform that enables users to book and register for conferences, college festivals, sports and entertainment events. It is a private companythat is now owned by parent company BookMyShow since Feb 2017. Townscript was started by Sachin Sharma, an IIT Kanpur graduate, and Sanchit Malik, a graduate from MIT Pune, as a do-it-yourself platform for event organizers.
The team initially set out to build a networking app for events but when they spoke to people they realized they would need to change the idea. During interactions with event organisers, they soon realized that online ticketing is a bigger pain point and there is a lack of good do-it-yourself event ticketing platforms. So they started building that platform and launched Townscript in its current form.
INSIDER
Insider is considered to be an experience finder, with tickets to everything from the latest in live sports events, to music festivals and concerts, stand-up comedy and open mic shows, food and shopping festivals, theatre, workshops and then some more.
They help people discover and buy the best in events, travel and food in one’s city. It was built by OML, one of the leading ticketing platforms in India for events and properties. The same people who organized Bacardi NH7 Weekender, one of the largest and most happening music festivals in India.
TICKETEES
Ticketees are an online ticket marketplace where anyone can buy or sell any ticket to any drama & related shows. There are many benefits of using Ticketees to buy and sell tickets. You can easily buy tickets in a safe and secure environment, and you don’t have to worry about communicating with sellers about your tickets. Ticketees offers ticket buyers a clear and easy to use website experience, with industry leading interactive seat maps.
Unlike other ticket websites, Ticketees is not a ticket broker and don’t own the tickets you purchase on the site. Ticketees was started to provide an active marketplace to Drama producers where they sell tickets and fans can gather to buy tickets. The price of tickets is determined by individual sellers. It is an open marketplace, which means that anyone can sell tickets at Ticketees.
EXPLARA
Creative entrepreneurs and businesses are struggling to bring their audience and monetize their events. Explara offered a solution to solve that become the first few companies in the world to provide a D.I.Y. (Do It Yourself) platform for event ticketing & event management.
Host events to bring people together, sell event tickets/ registrations, and collect payments instantly. Sell membership program, enable your community to discuss ideas, share expertise, and collaborate in activities. Sell digital products, services directly to customers anywhere in the world, and start collecting one-time or recurring payments.
They host amazing events, simplify event operation with predefined workflows, customization, onsite solutions, and enable team collaboration to maximize return from your events with the world’s most affordable event ticketing software.
IN CONCLUSION
As one can make out, most of the websites are facilitators of events. They either sell tickets, or help people book them or pay for them online and book passes. They are like middlemen and aggregators in this context.
Only RAAH remains to be an exclusive venue that carries out its own programming. Being a space of repute, it is mandatory for all lovers of arts and literature to visit this place and attend some programs. It also maintains a well-stocked library with a plethora of books on varied genres, which the patrons are most welcome to sit and read. It is also one of the few places in the city that is handicap friendly.
