Zomato Brings Back Food Carnival Zomaland — Will Cover 7 Cities, 400+ Restaurants

After a hiatus of two years, Zomato has brought back its food carnival – Zomaland. The event will bring together 400+ restaurants, spanning over four months and seven cities.

The carnival-style event was put on the back burner amid the pandemic-induced restrictions. In 2019, the foodtech giant hosted Zomaland for the second time, when it registered over 150K visitors, 300+ restaurants and served 370K+ dishes. Besides food, the company also had music and stand up events from artists all over the country.

With the effect of the pandemic waning and life returning back to normal, Zomato is looking to host the live event bringing together some of the top chefs, famous restaurants from across the country, a line-up of music artists and DJs, and interactive installations in Pune, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, New Delhi, Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Kolkata.  

It will also feature a classic fun fair of games and photo booths, food parades, street performances, live shows and more.

“This will be our grandest season, with the carnival setting up its tents in 7 cities, hosting the best of dining and entertainment,” Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal said in a tweet as he announced the carnival.

Zomato charges an entry fee from customers to attend the event. For general passes, the fee will be INR 499 and for VIP passes, the price is INR 999 – both of which can be purchased on the Zomato app or on Paytm.

The format was announced in 2018 when Zomato looked to bank on the offline segment with Zomato Events with the multi-city food carnival.

Zomato’s Full Platter

Despite being one of the two largest food delivery aggregators in India, Zomato has been trying and testing several business verticals and offering for the past few years. From quick commerce to intercity delivery, from B2B (Hyperpure) to now offline events, Zomato has been dipping its fingers in all formats.

Only recently, Zomato started testing a new late delivery fee pilot, wherein it was charging INR 9 less for a 15-minutes late delivery. 

Previously, it announced plans to build an intercity network for food delivery, moving a step ahead of the hyperlocal food delivery format. 

The publicly listed startup’s shares have been under pressure over the last few months due to concerns over profitability. It posted a revenue of INR 1,414 Cr in Q1 FY23 and halved its loss to INR 186 Cr. Zomato claims to be on the path of achieving breakeven in late FY23 or early FY24. 

Earlier, it stated that it has made all investments for any future plans and does not expect to make any other strategic minority investments in the foreseeable future. Whether the infra-heavy Zomaland comes into the same, will only be clear after the results for FY23 come out. 

With the startup’s share prices declining over the last few months, many analysts have given a ‘buy’ call on the stock with a target price of INR 90-INR 100. On Thursday, shares of Zomato ended 1.95% higher at INR 65.65 on the BSE.