Book my show lays off 200 as pandemic thrashes movie business
Khevna.P.Shah, INN/Bangalore
@Shahkhevna1, @Infodeaofficial
BookMyShow is an online platform for booking movie tickets and entertainment events, which has laid off 200 people, the cofounder and chief executive Ashish Hemrajani tweeted.
It is the second major layoff at the company in the last one year as movie theatres largely remain shut and outdoor events have come to a standstill.
Due to the pandemic, the theaters were shut down and many companies like BookMyShow have faced incredible losses, and were almost out of business.
In May last year, BookMyshow had to let go of 270 people as the first Covid-19 wave hit the country. Before the pandemic, the Mumbai-based company had around 1,500 people. Now the number has gone down to around 1,000.
Covid-19 has taught me many lessons & I learnt another one today. As we let go of 200 of the most incredibly talented & performance driven individuals, each & everyone has messaged, thanking me for the opportunity, the love for @bookmyshow, and asking me if they could help,” Ashish Hemrajani said in a tweet thread.
He also sought leads for new opportunities for the impacted employees so that they can find new jobs. “They will contribute incredibly to the growth of your wonderful firms. I’m sure we will all come out stronger,” he further added.
BookMyShow used to get around 65% of its revenue from the movie ticketing business . Its pay-per-view movie streaming vertical is still developing.
“The Book my Show had thought there would be a full recovery by now, but the second wave has changed all of that. The current layoffs would allow them to handle the impact of the pandemic for a year,” a person aware of this situation said.
But even when the theaters are opened in future and the economy is back to normal, companies like BookMyShow will take time to start earning profits like before because the audience are already comfortable with watching movies on OTT platform which is more safe and also economical.
