district150 in an interview with MICEtalk reveals its innovative approach, bridging gaps in infrastructure, and setting industry benchmarks for unparalleled experiences.
MT Bureau
Q1. Can you provide a brief overview of district150 and its unique positioning in the market? How does district150 address the current needs in the meetings & events space?
district150 is a first-of-its-kind lifestyle-focused, hospitality-powered, multi-purpose meetings and events space. It is an innovative, industry-first solution to meet the following consumer and industry needs in the MICE landscape:
- district150 is the contemporary counterpart of the traditional meeting & event venues, which have often struggled to innovate and meet differentiated needs. The aim with district150 is to address these limitations and challenges, with a fresh approach to infrastructure, event planning, and execution. With a flexible infrastructure design and tech-capabilities, it allows brands, event organisers, and individuals to hire district150 as an experiential venue for all their meeting & events’ needs — business, social, and cultural. district150 is ideal to host corporate meetings & events such as conferences, town hall meetings, product launches, company parties; social events such as wedding events, anniversaries; community-driven events like culinary pop-ups, wine & whiskey tastings; lifestyle experiences like comedy shows, sports screenings, fashion shows, conversations with thought leaders; music performances like jazz nights, opera; book launches; art soirees; theatre; wellness workshops and much more.
In addition, we also have an in-house event planning & production team, which acts as a one-stop-shop for clients’ event requirements. From customised menus all the way down to F&B, decor, curation of artists, performances, and overall entertainment, we have expertise to handle all the details as per the given mandate, while the client can focus on their guests. Since district150’s hospitality offering is powered by The Quorum, we bring that same degree of quality to the event curation and F&B. We believe that clients that host an event at district150 are not merely renting a room but creating an experience.
- At a larger ecosystem level, India’s MICE industry is undergoing a deficit of premium meeting and event infrastructure, while the demand soars. There is an extensive push by the government to boost India’s MICE economy, complemented by the introduction of newer convention centres and hotel projects. However, construction of such facilities requires a significant lead time (approximately 5-6 years). As an efficient solution, we recognise an immense potential within existing grade-A office buildings, purpose-built for large movements, to bridge this demand-supply gap. We have conceptualised district150 in line with this thesis, which can be explained as the “Hotelisation of the office building”. It refers to the idea of building a hotel-type amenity inside commercial developments, which serves as an experiential venue for business, as well as social and cultural meetings & events. district150 offers areas for head-down work, conferences, performances, social spaces, rooms for content creation — all integrated under one. The additional advantage is that most office buildings are usually located in prime areas with ample parking facilities and are well connected to public transportation networks, making them not only easily accessible to attendees and organisers, but also much more sustainable from an urban planning perspective.
Q3. How did you identify the demand-supply gap in the meetings & events infrastructure, particularly in comparison to traditional hotel and standalone banquet spaces?
Before establishing district150, we ran The Quorum for 5 years. Despite being in a community-oriented hospitality business, we constantly received queries from people whowanted to use The Quorum’s dedicated banquet spaces to host their events. The reasons that attributed to these inbound inquiries were our contemporary and flexible infrastructure design which is conducive for both corporate and social events; high-qualityF&B program; event programming expertise; and the location. Both our clubs (Gurgaon and Mumbai) are located in grade-A commercial developments, easily accessible to guests and event organisers, in turn enhancing their overall experience.
This validated our observation that existing hotels and standalone banquets in the market are not only limited in number, but also struggled to innovate. The one-size-fits-all banquet and hospitality solutions could not meet individuals’ and brands’ differentiated needs.
We used our learnings from The Quorum to solidify district150’s concept, model, and offerings, before launching it in Hyderabad.
Q4. What challenges did you face in implementing the concept of “hotelisation of the office building” for meetings & events purposes, and how were they overcome?
Design was the major challenge. Fitting a tech forward, aesthetic place in an office building is always a daunting task, but our experience designing & building The Quorumclubs across Gurgaon, Mumbai, and soon in Hyderabad, helped us navigate it seamlessly.
Q5. How does district150 navigate the competitive landscape in the meetings & events industry, especially considering its unique approach? What strategies are in place to stay ahead of industry trends and maintain a competitive edge?
Our core USP is F&B Hospitality. It looks simple but is extremely difficult to achieve consistently without fail. With years of innovation in the culinary and service space, we have set a high benchmark for ourselves as well as the industry. In addition, our advance tech capabilities and attractive pricing make district150 a preferred choice for events across the spectrum. Our commitment is to ensure that every client hosting an event atdistrict150 leaves with an experience that beckons them back for more.
