Political Events May See a 300-500% Jump by the Next General Elections in 2024: Samit Garg, E-Factor

by  EVENTFAQS Bureau Industry Watch | December 15, 2020 | Interview

Samit Garg E Factor Congregations India Deepak Choudhary EEMA

Ahead of the upcoming virtual ‘CONGREGATIONS INDIA: Government, Political & Religious Events Summit’ by EVENTFAQs Media on Thursday, December 24, 2020, we reached out to co-curators of the event for their valuable views with regard to the scale of Government events and skillsets required by event industry professionals to manage them. Here, Samit Garg, CEO & Co-Founder of experiential, weddings and events firm E Factor, who is a co-curator of the #CongregationsIndia event as well as moderator of a session, shares his insights.  

How big is the space of Government events in India, including cultural, religious and sporting events? Pre-pandemic, how was each segment within Government events growing?
The total size of Government events should be in the region of Rs 75,000 crore to Rs 10,00,00 crore - this includes both tendered and non-tendered event activities. This includes events around culture, tourism, religion, sports, landmark celebrations, inaugurations, summits, etc.

The fastest growth is being seen across Culture & Tourism, on a sustainable basis, as this is giving birth to a totally new segment - microcations around events. The Government spending in this area will grow by 40-60% annually over the next three to five years.

Religious events and festivals come second on the list in terms of growth patterns that have been seen in the last three years. The one notable thing here is that the size of these events is very large - both on account of capital deployed and people attendance. Expected growth trajectory is in the region of 30-40%.

The third on the list is Summits & Trade events, followed by inaugurations, etc.

How big is the space of political events in India? How do you see its growth over the years?
The space is very large and is also largely unorganised and unrecorded because of the fund deployment funnel. However, this is changing rapidly and moving towards a more corporatised system and we should not be surprised to see a 300-500% jump by the next general elections of 2024.

What is the potential Government events hold for event managers? How much of your portfolio comprises Government/political events?
There is tremendous potential here. Being the largest democracy of the world and having exhibited a five-times multiplier increment in per capita income in the last 20 years, the Government has realised the potential of Experiential Engagement with the population, that stands close to Rs 135 crorebusiness today. One needs to carefully understand the need of a Government department and intelligently marry it with the expectations and psyche of the society concerned - if done right, then success stories get written. About 35% of our business today is Government events and we stepped into this five years ago.

What are the special skillsets required to handle Government and political events?
They may be many more, but I would rank these as the Top 4,the 4 P’s of Government events: People Sensitivity, Political Insight, Policy Inferencing and Public Impacting.

Do you see large scale congregations returning faster in the Government/political space, over corporate/private events?
Private events have already started staging a come-back. The next is political, then Government and then corporate. 

Tell us about your own experience of working on Government events.
Not everyone can do it - but those who can learn this art, will never be out of business.

To register for Congregations India, click here - https://bit.ly/3gkwLVh

For more details contact: Ramesh Patil: ramesh@eventfaqs.com