MAM
Fringe festival finally hits Mumbai stage in March
60 plus shows from 10–15 March 2026 at NCPA plus Bandra venues.
MUMBAI: The Fringe is no longer on the fringe, it’s centre stage in Mumbai, ready to turn the city into a creative playground. After nearly 80 years of shaking up global performance culture from Edinburgh to Prague and Adelaide, the world’s largest open-access arts movement makes its India debut with the Mumbai Fringe Festival from 10 to 15 March 2026.
Kicking off at the iconic Tata Theatre, NCPA, the six-day celebration will spill across Bandra’s buzzing creative circuit, Khar Comedy Club, 3 Art House and indifferent @ Gharonda delivering nearly 60 performances in comedy, theatre, poetry, storytelling and experimental work. This isn’t a sit-down spectacle; it’s a city on the move, with audiences hopping between venues to catch new voices and bold ideas in their rawest form.
The lineup mixes homegrown stars with international heavyweights. Rohan Joshi, Kanan Gill, Varun Grover, Aakash Gupta, Priya Malik, Amandeep Khayal, Urooj Ashfaq and Amit Tandon bring the Indian edge, while global gems include Nigel Miles Thomas’s award-winning solo Sherlock Holmes: The Last Act, The Shakespeare Edit’s striking Macbeth adaptation and David Hoskin’s genre-blending Haunted House (mime, comedy, storytelling mash-up). True to Fringe spirit, the programme thrives on intimacy, invention and fearless creative risks.
Tickets are already live on Bookmyshow, with several shows sold out, signalling strong early buzz. Co-founders Steve Gove (of the 25-year-old Prague Fringe) and Simar Singh (UnErase Poetry) are steering the ship, united by the belief that Mumbai and India is primed for the Fringe model.
Steve Gove said, “Bringing Fringe to Mumbai has been a long-held dream. Cities around the world have embraced this model and watched it reshape their creative landscapes. Mumbai has the energy, the appetite and the talent to make this extraordinary.”
Simar Singh added, “The Fringe model gives artists complete freedom. It creates space for new voices and unexpected ideas to meet audiences directly. Mumbai deserves a platform like this.”
Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society chief executive Tony Lankester chimed in, “Born in Scotland nearly 80 years ago, the Fringe has always stood for joy, openness and giving everyone a platform with minimal gatekeeping… We are delighted to see the Mumbai Fringe carry this same spirit forward.”
In a country bursting with artistic tradition, the Fringe’s arrival feels both overdue and electric, a chance for audiences to experience unfiltered, up-close performance that has quietly shaped modern theatre worldwide. Grab tickets on Bookmyshow before the best spots vanish. Mumbai’s creative margins just got a whole lot louder.
MAM
Madison World to launch AI platform M BrAIn for media planning
Agency group invests about $1 million as it shifts to AI driven growth planning.
MUMBAI: If media planning once ran on spreadsheets and gut instinct, the next chapter may run on algorithms and curiosity. Madison World is preparing to roll out the first version of its proprietary artificial intelligence platform Madison M BrAIn in early April, as the independent agency group accelerates its transition toward AI driven planning and product led media services.
The platform, expected to involve an investment of around $1 million, is designed to reshape how the agency approaches strategy by combining internal knowledge, external data sources and advanced AI models into a single intelligence ecosystem.
According to Madison Media, OOH and Hiveminds partner and group CEO Ajit Varghese the initiative forms part of a larger structural rethink within the organisation. “Traditionally agencies built frameworks around media planning and allocation. We are redesigning that structure into what we call a Growth Planning System (GPS),” Varghese said.
The shift reflects a growing belief that effective media strategy must begin earlier in the decision making process. Instead of jumping directly to channel allocation, planners must first decode the market itself identifying consumer barriers, purchase triggers and the core challenges facing a brand.
Once those insights are mapped, agencies can build clearer growth agendas for clients and design media strategies that connect more closely with business outcomes.
To support that approach, Madison has built Madison M BrAIn as what it describes as a human AI cognitive ecosystem. Acting as a central intelligence hub, the platform aggregates proprietary insights alongside external data sources and large language models, enabling planners to access deeper market intelligence before building campaign strategies.
Varghese said one of the core objectives is to democratise knowledge across the organisation. “In the past, this level of understanding was largely available to senior leaders or experienced strategists. With Madison M BrAIn, even a junior planner should be able to access the same intelligence and approach clients with a far more informed perspective,” he said.
The agency has already implemented the new planning philosophy internally and completed three months of testing for the AI platform, with early trials showing encouraging results in terms of learning capability and system performance.
While the first version relied on global large language models, Madison is now developing its own proprietary Small Language Model (SLM) to serve as the core of the M BrAIn ecosystem.
“The SLM will be able to read global LLMs, but the LLMs cannot read the SLM,” Varghese explained. “That ensures all the intelligence we build remains within the Madison ecosystem and strengthens our proprietary knowledge base.”
The first version of Madison M BrAIn is expected to go live in early April, with a more refined version targeted by the end of June. Over time, the platform will integrate additional external data streams and APIs including consumer insight platforms, social listening tools and client datasets.
These integrations are expected to enhance the system’s learning capability and enable it to generate increasingly sophisticated strategic recommendations.
Although the platform is currently being deployed for internal use, Madison sees potential for it to evolve into a licensable product in the future.
“At the moment, our focus is to stabilise and strengthen M BrAIn internally. But over time there is potential for this to become a product that could be licensed externally,” Varghese said.
The AI platform is also part of a wider technology transformation underway at the agency group. Alongside M BrAIn, Madison is building a broader digital infrastructure called the Catalyst operating system, which aims to integrate operational processes, data and product platforms into a unified ecosystem.
This broader technology stack could require an additional $1 million to $1.5 million investment over time, though spending will be phased and reviewed regularly.
“We are evaluating progress every three months and prioritising the most critical capabilities first,” Varghese said.
Madison expects the full AI and operating ecosystem to be fully functional within 12 to 18 months, positioning the agency to combine human strategy with machine intelligence as the advertising industry enters its next data driven phase.
