HorrorCon’s leap to 30,000 fans is not a follower story

Divay Agarwal, founder of media company TMV and creator of the horror channel Khooni Monday, has built his brand far beyond YouTube. The third edition of HorrorCon India opens today and tomorrow at NSIC Grounds in Delhi’s Okhla, and the event is projected to draw 30,000 visitors. That is up from 5,000 in its 2024 debut and nearly 20,000 in 2025.

The growth makes HorrorCon a meaningful second business. Agarwal says TMV’s digital content still brings in about 60% of revenue, while HorrorCon adds around 20%, and gaming and production split the rest.

01 · The follower fallacy

Khooni Monday has more than 6.5 million YouTube subscribers and a 10-million-plus cross-platform community. Its Spotify podcast, The Horror Show by Khooni Monday, ranked as India’s second-most-streamed podcast in 2025. Yet Agarwal is direct that none of that guaranteed ticket sales.

“Digital reach and commercial intent are two very different metrics,” he said. “A subscriber base as large as 10M+ gives you a head start in awareness, but it doesn’t automatically translate into paid ticket sales.”

So HorrorCon stopped selling itself as a Khooni Monday fan meetup. This weekend’s programming is built to pull in people who may never have watched an episode. Along with horror zones and cosplay, the line-up includes hip-hop act Seedhe Maut, gaming arenas and a family zone called HallowVille, aimed at Delhi-NCR’s estimated 40 lakh Gen Z and millennial event-goers.

02 · Selling a cultural moment, not a scare

The same reframe changed the sponsorship conversation. Horror usually makes brand managers nervous, but TMV began pitching Halloween as a quirky Gen Z cultural moment. Brands including Spotify, HELL Energy, Instax, Digitek and Plum have sponsored earlier editions. This year, Flipkart Minutes has set up a trick-or-treat arena, Decathlon is running gaming zones, and earlier sponsor Digitek created an on-ground podcast booth called Bhootcast.

Agarwal’s pitch to sponsors goes beyond impressions. “Traditional sponsorships often measure success through impressions, logo visibility and reach. We look at how brands can create meaningful engagement, drive participation, encourage organic content creation and become part of the audience’s festival memories,” he said.

On SkillBox, entry passes start at Rs 599 to Rs 799, Super Fan bundles go up to Rs 2,498, and group VIP packages cross Rs 10,000.

03 · What CMOs can take from this

• Treat a large digital audience as awareness, not confirmed demand.
• Design live events for the non-fan, not just the loyal follower.
• Reposition niche or “risky” categories as cultural moments before asking for sponsorship.
• Keep digital content and offline event strategies as separate P&Ls with separate jobs.

The wider context is India’s creator economy saturation. Many creators want an offline business that survives algorithm shifts. Agarwal’s argument is that an IP ecosystem, not a follower count, creates assets that keep working after the content is consumed.

Source: Indian Advertising Media & Marketing News – exchange4media

Mad About Marketing Desk The strategists and writers at Mad About Marketing, writing up what we see in the work every week.