iWorld
Loco, India’s first and largest interactive game show, makes a regional push and hits 10 million registered users
Mumbai, Oct 3, 2018: Loco, India’s first and largest interactive game show app, which is run by Pocket Aces, a leading digital media entertainment company, today announced that it crossed the 10 million registered user mark on the app within just 6 months of launch. With an average of more than 1.5 lakh concurrent players per game and a peak of more than 5 lakh concurrent players playing the same game at the same time, the platform is setting new benchmarks for live and interactive entertainment in India.
The platform offers a whole host of different game shows including Loco Bazaar (where the knowledge of prices of interesting as well as mundane products is tested), Loco Percent (where the analytical and estimation skills of the audience are tested), Loco Googly (where the audience has to pick the correct question), and Speed Loco (a rapid fire quiz experience). One of the platform’s most popular franchise is Super Loco, where only one winner takes home the entire prize money of that particular show. The variety of games across the week offers users great choice on the type of entertainment they’d like to consume and the live/interactive element gives them something they can’t experience on any other platform.
Today, Loco has democratized game shows for the ordinary Indian, with lakhs of users around India participating in the platform’s shows on a daily basis. Instead of just being viewers of shows, users can now be active participants and the whole casting/selection process has been eclipsed in favor of a more participatory game for consumers across India. A good indication of this is the fact that tier 2 cities form more than half of the top 10 cities for the platform and some of the biggest winners come from non-metro areas. These include Sandeep Singh from Lucknow who took home 1 lakh rupees after winning Super Loco and Sanni Kumar from Laxmanpur Village in Bihar, who won 10,000 rupees in January earlier this year. The platform’s growth has been complemented by its successful foray into four new languages – Bengali, Marathi, Tamil and Telugu. Today, Loco is available for audiences to enjoy in six languages, including English and Hindi.
Ashwin Suresh and Anirudh Pandita, Founders, Pocket Aces said, “As a company, we have always been focused on pressing home the advantages that smartphones have to offer and interactive game shows are a great example of something that traditional television just can not do. We are excited to build this for Indian consumers and with our local language rollout, we are now making the game show experience available to consumers across the country. With a strong local flavor to our content, Bharat-focused product engineering/design, and a strong focus on community, we are creating a differentiated entertainment platform that sits at the crossroads of gaming, social, and content, and helps solve boredom for hundreds of millions of Indian consumers.”
Adding to this, Aditi Shrivastava, co-founder, Pocket Aces said, “Loco provides a new, highly engaged manner of experiencing content and with our upcoming product updates, we will get closer to our aim of providing a new gamified content discovery experience for consumers. The high engagement nature of the platform offers advertisers an exciting ad format that is not available on other platforms. We have already started testing our first native advertising offering and brands such as OnePlus and Myntra have already seen excellent results from their activities with us. We will roll out many other exciting ad products in the future and our track record of delivering value for advertisers on our FilterCopy, Dice Media, and Gobble platforms will keep us in good stead as we build out this initiative.”
Loco is available via Google Play for Android devices and the App Store for iOS devices. It is consistently ranked #1 in the trivia category on Google Play and the top 10 entertainment apps in India on the App Store.
The game shows available on the platform include daily shows Loco Quiz (which goes live at 1:30pm and 10pm) and Speed Loco (which goes live at 6pm), as well as weekly special shows such as Loco Bazaar, Loco Googly, and Loco Percent. In order to win the daily prize money that ranges between Rs 50, 000 – Rs 1,50,000, players must answer all questions in the game correctly. If multiple contestants answer all the questions correctly, the game’s total prize money is split equally. Eliminated players have the option to watch the rest of the game and in certain games participate in special Loco Jackpot questions.
The show is hosted by a team of much loved presenters led by the accomplished Gaurav Kapur. The hosts take the contestants through the questions, entertain them, provide interesting trivia, and help them win the prize money.
The platform has one of the most vibrant communities for any Indian entertainment platform and in a short span of time, has already racked up more than 1.7 lakh followers each on Instagram and Facebook. Its Twitter account has 62k followers and is one of the most engaged Twitter accounts in India.
iWorld
Mastercard expands concert series with comedy and music format
Vir Das, Zakir Khan and Papon headline multi-city shows across India.
MUMBAI: From punchlines to power chords, the stage is getting a genre upgrade. Mastercard has unveiled the next phase of its multi-city concert series in India, blending stand-up comedy with live music in a format that mirrors the country’s evolving entertainment tastes. The new line-up brings together a diverse mix of performers, including comedians Vir Das and Zakir Khan, alongside singer Papon. The shift marks a departure from earlier editions that were primarily music-led, featuring global and Indian acts such as Enrique Iglesias, A. R. Rahman and Sunidhi Chauhan.
Curated in collaboration with Tribe Vibe and EVA Live, the expanded series is designed to create a broader cultural platform that brings humour, storytelling and music into a single live experience.
Vir Das will kick off the comedy segment in New Delhi with four shows across two days at Yashobhoomi on 9 and 10 May. Meanwhile, Zakir Khan is set for an extended run in Mumbai, with nine shows scheduled at Dome SVP Stadium across 12, 13, 14, 19 and 20 June, with additional dates expected.
On the music front, Papon will headline a six-city tour, beginning in Chandigarh on 16 May, followed by Ahmedabad on 29 May and Lucknow on 30 May. The tour will then move to Bengaluru on 6 June, Hyderabad on 7 June, and conclude in Indore on 14 June.
The series continues to offer exclusive benefits for Mastercard cardholders, including priority ticket access and premium lounge experiences at venues positioning the platform as both an entertainment and lifestyle proposition.
Beyond the spotlight, the initiative carries a social dimension. Through its partnership with Learning Links Foundation, Mastercard has enabled nearly 90 students from underserved communities across cities such as Delhi, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Jaipur and Chandigarh to experience live events often for the first time aiming to spark interest in careers within the experience economy.
As live entertainment becomes increasingly hybrid and experiential, Mastercard’s latest move signals a simple insight: today’s audience doesn’t just want a show, they want a story, a laugh and a memory, all rolled into one.
