Mazhar Nadiadwala Reveals DOME's Plans to Become India's Iconic, Internationally Recognised Venue

by  EVENTFAQS Bureau Industry Watch | November 15, 2016 | Interview

DOME@NSCI Mazhar Nadiadwala

Dome @ NSCI, one of India’s leading sports, leisure and entertainment destinations, has over 50 activities taking place under its roof. A Cineyug Group enterprise, Dome was inaugurated at the end of the year 2012, and since then the venue has hosted some of the country’s most outstanding entertainment and sporting events. The venue provides a spectacular experience to audiences, and is a highly regarded venue among event planners and producers. 

In this interview, Mazhar Nadiadwala, Managing Director, DOME, talks about how his vision is to give India an iconic venue of international recognition and create new benchmarks through highly curated experiential events, making the venue a destination itself. He also talks about what a venue in India must offer India’s growing experiential industry.

Comment on the growth of the events industry and the consequent demand for large venues?

The Indian events industry is growing at a rapid pace of 15% each year creating an increase in demand for entertainment investments. People are willing to spend large amounts of money on events. Gone are days where events focused on only one brand, various brands now join hands to create more noise and consumer attention. Destination weddings, indoor sports, international gigs and concerts, art and culture exhibitions have all evolved in the past few years. There has also been a rise in the number of entertainment award functions that now take place in India. It is essential to have large and fully equipped venues available in the city / country keeping in mind the high demand that is being generated.

Remark upon what DOME as a venue has to offer organisers. Comment on its growth in recent years/months.

We consider being a bespoke end-to-end events solution provider, with the high-end demands required in this day and age that consumers and organizers have, we provide them with everything being the one stop shop for the industry. Dome caters to every entertainment genre. We offer end to end event solutions for our clients and are extremely flexible by even just being venue partners. Dome has an area of 100,000 sq. ft. with pillar-less area of 35,000 sq. ft. The floor plan is designed in an extremely flexible manner that it can cater to as low as 300 all the way up to 8000 people, depending on the requirement of the event.

Dome has seen a drastic pick-up in the range of clientele and the kind of events we cater to. From being the venue to bring in an outdoor sport like Kabaddi indoors to organizing and hosting India’s first Broadway musical Beauty and the Beast, at an international level and as well as hosting the opening of the IPL, we have evolved significantly since we started off in 2012.

What does the venue do to market itself to event producers and agencies?

Dome maintains international standards and facilities by being fully equipped with extremely comfortable cushioned seats, load bearing ceiling with proper points for hanging acts and hanging props. We have an extremely powerful Italian made air-conditioning facility, the acoustics of the arena have been enhanced to international levels. We also offer quality and variety banquet facilities at Dome. We are also broadband friendly, especially for broadcasters, we have the facility of fiber connectivity, which is a faster option than satellite. Dome as a venue is very versatile as it can go from one kind of event to completely another kind of event.

What type of events does it cater to specifically? What plans does it have to grow its reach?

We believe in giving our customers a chance to live experiences at Dome by providing entertainment to all age groups through our extremely highly curated events across genres like sports, musicals, trade shows and exhibitions, international and national gigs, festive celebrations and much more. Although Bombay is the events hub of the nation, we intend to expand to other metro cities in India looking at the kind of demand they command. Our goal for the upcoming years is to be known nationally as the one stop destination for all large scale international events.

Talk about the events that the venue itself organises.

As a part of our own IP, we organize Musically Yours, which is a musical show that showcases singing talent from the industry, where the performer shares his/her favourite songs with the audience, singers as well as their own songs and there is personal interaction with the audience. We have had two such shows with Arijit Singh and Sufi Nights with Radio Mirchi under our Musically Yours IP. DOME Raas Garba is our foray into festival IPs with Navratri festivity being held over for 3 days in Dome. We had Parthiv Gohil mesmerizing the crowd of over 15000 over the 3 days. We host Cricket League on the lines of IPL, every year for the members of NSCI and the New Year’s night. Last year we saw the Kakkad sisters performing and rocking the NSCI club.

The broader purpose to organize our own IPS is to cater to both target audiences, event organisers who know exactly what they need from us and organisers who come for advice on the kind of events they can do here at Dome.

Comment on the market for purpose-built venues in India.

While we believe in diversity in entertainment, we also respect exclusivity of certain arenas which cater to a specific sport. However we believe in being flexible and a multipurpose service provider. 

What is the kind of support a venue should provide event agencies/performers? 

A venue could provide in house ticketing instead of outsourced. The venue and organisers should come together to market the event since they would be the best judge. A vast variety of F&B services provided at the venues would be a great added bonus.

Looking at the best international and the best Indian venues, are we catching up?

Just like international multi-purpose indoor arenas used for diverse events such as Olympic games, concerts and more, keeping that culture and philosophy in mind we are here providing diverse services.