Around 5000 people are expected to turn out for the YouTube FanFest set to take place in Mumbai on Friday making it the largest FanFest in Asia. It is a unique event where YouTube’s biggest stars meet, interact and perform for their fans, in a live show.
Thirty one stars -- with 30 million subscribers between them -- are slated to participate in the event which is being held in Mumbai for the second time. The line up includes some big comic draws like ||Superwoman||, The Viral Fever (TVF), JusReign, Kanan Gill & Biswa Kalyan Rath, East India Comedy, Enna Da Rascalas and Abish Mathew.
Musicians Shankar Tucker, Kurt Hugo Schneider and Sanam, make-up and fashion video bloggers Bethany Mota, Scherezade Shroff and Elton Fernandez, and popular culinary expert VahChef will all be a part of the FanFest.
“They are all normal people -- make-up artists, musicians, comedians… just normal people who have an incredible connection with their fans,” said Jasper Donat, executive producer of YouTube FanFest. “This line up is biggest we’ve produced -- 31 stars on stage, while the previous record was only 15. These 31 stars have about 30 million subscribers between them.”
TVF, a group that became popular with their ‘Barely Speaking With Arnub’ episodes, and other sketches, reached one million subscribers on YouTube recently -- a feat that earned them the Gold Play Button from YouTube.
“While traditional media partners get traction through volume of content, to have reached this landmark with only a 107 videos on their channel show the power if their content and how it has resonated with the viewers,” said Gautam Anand, Director Content & Partnership, APAC YouTube. “The new generation is demanding content that is different and unique and that is where these creators come in. We have successful creators in comedy, beauty, food, how-to and music. We’re now seeing new voices emerge across genres that are getting tremendous traction in India.”
“My four year old son is a part of the YouTube-first generation -- a generation that is actually turning to YouTube as a primary destination to explore, learn and discover new content,” he explained.
Anand also quoted some statistics to emphasise YouTube’s emerging importance in the content and new media space: “Today, we have over a billion users coming to the site every month. We have six billion hours of content being consumed every month. About 300 hours of content is uploaded on YouTube every minute.”
“With respect to India, we have been witnessing a 70 per cent growth for viewership year over year. And we’re just getting started. As we get improved bandwidth, improved access, more affordable data plans we expect YouTube to see explosive growth,” he said.
The event will take place at NSCI Indoor Stadium, Worli.
