BookMyShow.com and PVR Cinemas enter into a 5 year strategic partnership

~ BookMyShow.com to be ticketing partner of PVR Cinemas – targeting Rs.1000 crores worth of movie tickets with this partnership ~

Bigtree Entertainment Private Limited, the holding company of India’s largest entertainment ticketing portal BookMyShow.com, today announced its association with PVR Ltd., the leading entertainment company in India. BookMyShow.com has signed a 5-year deal as the online ticketing partner for PVR Cinemas across India. The companies are targeting ticket sales worth Rs.1000crores over these 5 years exclusively on Bookmyshow.com for PVR Limited besides PVR’s present existing sale of tickets from its Box Office and other channels

Commenting on this development, Ashish Hemrajani, Founder & CEO of BookMyShow.com said, “This association is a great development from the entertainment industry’s perspective, with two significant players in their specialized domain coming together.  We are happy to partner with PVR cinemas, which is continuance in our efforts in making entertainment hassle-free for consumers. The partnership extends to areas outside just pure sales but also to harnessing bookmyshow’s analytical ability to ensure targeting the right content to right users as well as marketing initiatives around non-movies and alternative content”.

Pramod Arora, Group President & CEO of PVR Cinemas said, “In our everlasting zest to provide convenience to our esteemed patrons, we have associated and partnered with Bookmyshow.com as our preferred e-ticketing channel partner. We have been in discussions with BMS for quite some time to work out this association, which shall help us touch millions of new additional customers who may now experience the joy of watching films at PVR Cinema near them. This is another initiative to help augment the box office revenues by reaching out to more and more consumers and achieving better penetration in our micro markets. Besides a better reach, our association with BMS shall also help us in CRM initiatives by deploying tools like KYC (know your customer) to help us serve our customers with their preferred choice of seats, concessions and other soft offerings. To sum up, this association is a sure delight not only for us but for our patrons, film distributors and producers alike!”

Bookmyshow will market and sell tickets of PVR Cinemas, over its web, mobile apps and other affiliate channels. The significant consumer shift over the past few years towards online and mobile sales, with a strong CRM backbone allows better segmentation and analysis in marketing relevant content to users. This shift also helps reduce the burden at the box office by reducing costs and making up for the lack of customer data thereby helping in predictive modeling.

BookMyShow.com is India's premiere online ticketing platform where consumers can search and book tickets for movies, plays, concerts, entertainment performances and sporting events. Besides movie/play tickets, the company is an exclusive ticketing partner for several leading sporting franchises in India including JPSI (Formula1), Indian Premier League, Mumbai Indians, Delhi Daredevils, Punjab Kings XI, Rajasthan Royals, Hyderabad Sunrises, Pune warriors, Aircel Chennai Open, Super Fight League, Yonex Badminton Championships, Sunburn Goa, Norah Jones, Nh7, Swedish House Mafia etc. The company has also expanded its footprint to international markets in New Zealand and Australia.

PVR, a pioneer in Multiplex development in India, is the largest cinema exhibition player in India. The company began its commercial operations in June 1997 with the launch of India's first multiplex in Saket, New Delhi. PVR Cinemas today has a significant presence in 36 cities in India, including Delhi, NCR, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Lucknow, etc. making it the largest cinema exhibition chain in the country.

Amit Khan Saheb, Partner – Vishruta Kaul, Managing Associate and Ayush Soni, Associate from BMR legal advised BookMyShow on this transaction

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About BookMyShow.com: Bigtree Entertainment's BookMyShow.com is the largest entertainment ticketing portal in India with over 90% market share in the online entertainment ticketing space. Headquartered in Mumbai, BookMyShow.com has an enviable kitty of over 1500 screens in more than 100 cities. BookMyShow.com tickets for over 1000 events every year across India. It has a fan following of over 2.0 million Facebook Fans. BookMyShow.com has special downloadable mobile applications for Blackberry, iPhone, Android and Windows phone. It has also been awarded in the category of 'The Hottest Company of the Year-2011-12’ and ‘The Company to Watch Out for' in the prestigious CNBC Young Turks Award. BookMyShow.com is one of the top three entertainment e-commerce websites in India.

About Accel Partners: Founded in 1983, Accel Partners has a long history of partnering with outstanding entrepreneurs and management teams to build world-class businesses. Accel today invests globally using dedicated teams and market-specific strategies for local geographies, with offices in Palo Alto, California, New York City, London and Bangalore, as well as in China via its partnership with IDG-Accel. Accel has helped entrepreneurs build over 300 successful companies, many of which have defined their categories, including 99designs, Actuate, AdMob, Agile Software, Alfresco, Angry Birds (Rovio), Atlassian, BBN, Bonobos, Braintree, Brightcove, Cloudera, ComScore, Diapers.com (Quidsi), Dropbox, Etsy, Facebook, Fusion-IO, Gameforge, GlamMedia, Groupon, Imperva, Infinera, Interwoven, IronPlanet, JBoss, Kayak,Lookout, Macromedia, metroPCS, MoPub, OPOWER, Polycom/PictureTel, Playfish, Portal Software, QlikTech, Rapt, Real Networks, Redback, Responsys, Riverbed, Spotify, Squarespace, SunRun, Trulia, UUNet, Veritas, Walmart.com, Webroot, Wonga, XenSource and Zimbra. In India, Accel has made investments in companies such as Ace Creative Learning, Babyoye, EduPristine, enStage, Flipkart, Forus, FreshDesk, HealthcareMagic, Mitra Biotech, MuSigma, Myntra, Perfint, Probe, PropTiger, QwikCilver, SherSingh, SureWaves, Trivone, Vinculum and Virident. For more information, please visit the Accel Partners web site at www.accel.com find us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/accel.  

About Network 18: The Network18 Group is a media and entertainment company with interests in television, internet, films, ecommerce, magazines, mobile content and allied businesses. Through its subsidiary ‘TV18 Broadcast Ltd.’ [BSE: 532800, NSE: TV18BRDCST], the group operates news channels - CNBC-TV18, CNBC Awaaz, CNBC-TV18 Prime HD, CNN-IBN, IBN7 and IBN-Lokmat (a Marathi regional news channel in partnership with the Lokmat group). TV18 also operates a joint venture with Viacom, called Viacom18, which houses a portfolio of popular entertainment channels – Colors, Colors HD,MTV, SONIC, Comedy Central, VH1 and Nick - and Viacom18 Motion Pictures, the group’s filmed entertainment business. TV18 and Viacom18 have also recently announced a strategic joint venture called IndiaCast, a multi-platform ‘content asset monetization’ entity mandated to drive domestic and international channel distribution, placement services and content syndication for the bouquet of channels from TV18,Viacom18 and other broadcasters. TV18 has also forayed into the Indian factual entertainment space through A+E Networks | TV18 (Joint venture between A+E Networks and TV18 Broadcast), which has recently launched a new channel – HistoryTV18. Through ‘Network18 Media & Investments Ltd.’ [BSE: 532798, NSE: Network18], the group operates its digital, publishing and e-commerce assets including moneycontrol.com, ibnlive.com, in.com and firstpost.com. ‘Network18’ also operates e-commerce properties like HomeShop18 and bookmyshow.com and publishes Forbes India, the nation's first local edition of a foreign news magazine title and one of the world’s most influential business brands, in collaboration with Forbes Media. In addition, through ‘Network18’, the group operates Newswire18, providing real time financial information and news terminal services, and Network18 Publishing, a player in the special interest publishing space as well as E18, the group’s event management venture and Sport18, its sports management and marketing venture. ‘Network18’ has investments in Yatra, DEN Networks and other Capital18 portfolio companies. For more information, log on to www.network18online.com
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