180° VR and phone views from the stage rail at sold-out stadium tours
TL;DR Railside places 180° stereo cameras at fixed spots in a stadium show: the stage rail, the drum riser, the mixing desk. Fans who missed tickets, or live in a city the tour skipped, buy a camera seat from the promoter and watch live on a phone, TV or headset. The promoter shares the revenue.
Demand for big concerts in India now runs far ahead of seats. A global rock band's Ahmedabad shows drew over 2.2 lakh fans, and 86% of them travelled from outside the host city[1]. Tickets for the largest tours sell out in minutes, and most tours stop in five or six cities. Fans elsewhere either pay for flights and hotels or get nothing.
What about a livestream? A flat one exists for some shows, but it is the broadcaster's edit, and that's nowhere near the feeling of standing somewhere in the crowd.
Railside rigs four to eight camera positions per show, each with spatial audio taken from the mixing desk. A buyer picks a seat and can switch between seats if they paid for the bundle. On a phone the view moves as they turn it, on a TV it plays as a wide frame and on a headset it fills their vision. The promoter sells it next to the physical ticket, at a price below the cheapest seat.
The seed pitched VR concerts with heart-rate biofeedback and custom avatars, and I've reframed it. India has no public figure for VR headset ownership, and a product that needs one serves too few people. Biofeedback adds health-data consent duties for a feature fans have not asked for. The part that sells is presence at a show you could not attend, so that is what Railside offers, on screens people already own.
The viewer is a fan aged 18–35 in a non-tour city, or a family member abroad. The payer is the same fan, through the promoter's or ticketing platform's checkout, so the promoter controls the price and keeps a share. Artists and labels get a cut, because they must license the recording. My rough estimate is ₹299–799 per seat per show, and there's no comparable Indian price to check it against.
Live events have become a large and growing business in India. The organised live events market crossed ₹12,000 Cr in 2024, and a March 2026 consulting and ticketing-platform report puts it near ₹13,000 Cr, growing about 19% a year[2]. Promoters are building stadium-scale tours and looking for more revenue per show. Phone screens and 5G now carry high-bitrate streams in most cities.
There is no public figure for paid immersive or VR concert streaming in India. The narrowest firm signal is travel - 86% of that band's Ahmedabad fans came from elsewhere[1], which suggests large demand from people outside the host city. The ₹13,000 Cr live events market is adjacent context, not your market[2].
A UK start-up filmed concerts for headsets and relied on label deals for its artists[3]. It bought a well-known music streaming service in 2020[4], which was sold on again in 2022[5], so headset concerts did not hold up as a business alone. A big headset maker's own app streamed live music and sports to its headsets[6]. A US studio makes pre-recorded VR concert films with artists[7]. None sells live camera seats through Indian promoters. Flat multi-camera streams of small venues are a different, cheaper product. Railside is for stadium tours where demand outruns seats.
| Difficulty | Moderate (48/100) |
| Starting capital | ₹60–120 L |
| Time to launch | 6–9 months |
The camera kit is easy to buy. The hard part is getting rights. Every show needs the artist, the label and the music publisher to agree to recording and resale, and international acts often have exclusive broadcast deals. Live production at stadium scale also needs a crew that can rig fast and stream without failure.
No broadcast licence is needed to sell paid streams through a promoter, but rights decide whether you have a product at all.
Building this outside India? The categories above usually have a local equivalent, so check with your own regulator.
Don't let AI decide what you're allowed to record or resell. Rights deals are a lawyer's call, show by show.
Want to work out the AI layer for Railside? Talk to Yash →
Here's what can go south -
I'd back this for a founder from live production or a promoter's team who already knows artists' managers. If you're a VR software founder hoping the content will just come to you then it won't, honestly. Prove first that one mid-sized Indian act will license a show and that 1,000 fans pay for seats.
Plan for roughly ₹60–120 L over 6–9 months, mostly on camera rigs, a live production crew and rights work.
The key permissions are rights, not a licence. You need written consent from performers, cleared music rights, a check on existing broadcast deals, and DPDP compliance for buyer data.
Yes, wherever stadium tours sell out. Check your local performer and music rights rules and any broadcast deals first.
The free Railside validation kit has the line-by-line capital breakdown, the effort scoring, the rights and licensing checklist, a 14-day validation sprint with pass/fail targets, a 90-day launch plan, 10 interview questions for promoters and fans, and 5 assumptions to test. Download the kit →
Thinking about building Railside or something close to it? The make-or-break work is getting artists and labels to license their shows for paid camera seats, and I'm happy to think that through with you. If you need a hand, you know where to find me. Talk to Yash →
For illustration only. Names are fictional and ideas hypothetical; sourced facts are real but may be out of date. Nothing here is legal, financial or professional advice, and Yash Khatri is not personally liable for any use of it. Read the full disclaimer.