“There Is A Growing Demand For Premium, Differentiated Live Experiences”: Aman Kumar

As India’s live entertainment landscape moves beyond traditional concerts and festivals, Aman Kumar, Co-founder of Whitefox, The Grub Fest and AVA Experiences, is betting on experiences that bring audiences into the heart of the action.

Over the years, The Grub Fest has evolved from a food festival into a larger lifestyle and entertainment IP, while AVA Experiences has carved out a space around destination-led electronic music experiences.

In this exclusive interview with Loudest, Aman Kumar, Co-founder, Whitefox, The Grub Fest and AVA Experiences, talks about the evolution of The Grub Fest, changing audience expectations, music curation, and the growing opportunities in India’s Tier 2 and 3 live entertainment markets.

Here are edited excerpts:

The Grub Fest has grown beyond food into a larger lifestyle and entertainment experience. How do you see the IP evolving after the Legacy Edit?

The Grub Fest has a lot in store for the future. Over the last 12 years, we have continuously evolved the IP while staying true to its core identity of food, music and discovery.

The next phase of growth will see us taking The Grub Fest beyond the traditional metros and expanding into five Tier 2 cities, where we see a huge appetite for curated lifestyle and entertainment experiences. We also plan to launch The Grub Supper Club, a more intimate and premium concept that will bring together food, music, conversations and curated experiences in a more immersive setting.

The larger vision is to build The Grub Fest into a lifestyle platform rather than just a festival,an IP that can take different formats depending on the city, audience and occasion.

With food, music, gaming and experiential zones coming together, what did the Legacy Edit tell you about what today’s audiences are actually looking for?

Today’s audiences are looking for much more than just a performance or a meal,they are looking for experiences and memories.

People want to participate, discover, interact and create moments that they can take away with them. That is something we have consciously built into The Grub Fest by creating multiple touchpoints across food, music, gaming and experiential zones, where audiences can engage with the festival rather than simply consume it.

Grub Karaoke was a great example of this. It became one of the biggest hits of the season because it gave people an opportunity to become part of the experience themselves. It wasn’t just about watching someone perform; it was about getting on stage, singing with friends and creating a memory.

That, for us, is the future of live entertainment,creating spaces where audiences are participants, not just spectators.

With consumers having multiple live entertainment options today, how do you make The Grub Fest stand out and give audiences a reason to choose it? What was this year’s highlight?

The Grub Fest has been one of India’s leading food festivals for the last 12 years, and that legacy gives us a very strong relationship with our audience. But we also understand that audiences today have more choices than ever before, so staying relevant requires constant evolution.

Our biggest strength is our curation. We are extremely particular about the food brands and experiences that become part of the festival, and we constantly evolve our music programming based on changing audience preferences, trends and market dynamics.

At the same time, we don’t want The Grub Fest to become predictable. Every edition needs to give people something new to discover.

This year, the combination of food, music, gaming and interactive experiences came together particularly well. The response to Grub Karaoke was a highlight because it demonstrated how strongly audiences respond when you give them an opportunity to actively participate and create their own moments.

The music lineup featured a mix of established and emerging artists. How do you strike the right balance between audience pull and discovering new talent?

The Grub Fest has never been about simply booking artists who already have a large following. Our philosophy has always been rooted in discovery.

Just as people come to The Grub Fest to discover new food, we want them to discover new music as well. We deliberately create opportunities for emerging artists and new talent to perform alongside more established names.

There is a commercial balance that every festival needs to maintain, but we believe the brand has enough equity and audience pull to take those risks. Over the years, that approach has also helped us build credibility with artists and audiences.

For us, discovery is an important part of the Grub Fest DNA,whether it is a new restaurant, a new artist, a new format or a new experience.

As AVA Experiences expands its IP portfolio, where do you see the bigger growth opportunity,scaling established properties or creating new, locally relevant experiences across Tier 2 and 3 cities?

We see opportunities in both, but the approach is very different.

AVA Experiences is built around destination-led electronic music experiences, and our focus is on taking the format to newer and more interesting destinations while pairing them with the right artists and experiences.

We believe India has a significant opportunity beyond the traditional metropolitan markets. Audiences in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities are becoming increasingly sophisticated in what they consume, and there is a growing demand for premium, differentiated live experiences.

With AVA, we want to explore new destinations, experiment with formats and bring artists and audiences together in environments that feel unique and memorable. The ambition is to make AVA significantly bigger this year while retaining the exclusivity and destination-led character that makes the IP distinctive.

Ultimately, whether we are scaling an established IP like The Grub Fest or building newer properties like AVA, our objective remains the same—to create experiences that feel culturally relevant, emotionally engaging and worth travelling for.