It is often said that ‘Not all heroes wear capes’, but what if you got to wear one for doing something extraordinary? At the recently held Ather Community Day 2024 in Bengaluru, several individuals were granted that privilege. They earned their capes for setting distance records on a single charge, for clocking the highest mileage over the entire year, and also for engaging in some lighthearted fun.
However, this was no small affair in a hotel ballroom. The event took place at the spacious Karnataka Trade Promotion Organisation (KTPO) hall in Whitefield, which was filled to capacity with nearly 5,000 attendees, most of whom had come of their own volition. When Ather Energy’s Tarun Mehta took the stage and unveiled various products, including the electric two-wheeler manufacturer’s new ‘family’ scooter, the Rizta, the crowd erupted in delighted squeals. However, the decibel levels soared even higher when Mehta unveiled the company’s latest software update, Ather Stack 6, reminding everyone that this is, after all, a software city.
Even the chief guest, Amitabh Kant, India’s G20 Sherpa, seemed inspired as he took the stage to deliver his speech. The ambiance at the KTPO Hall felt almost surreal, with a palpable sense of excitement permeating the air. After having attended hundreds of launch conferences and witnessed everything from Eastern European gymnasts to Bollywood stars gyrating before a launch, this was the first time in a long while that things felt genuinely different.
I spoke to Mehta, an IIT-Madras graduate, afterwards, and even he was taken aback by the turnout. “We expected a couple of thousand people to show up, but over 4,000 Ather Community members came,” he said.
While that was only a fifth of the 19,000 odd who had registered, there were Ather owners from as far as Coimbatore, Cochin, and even Pune, some having ridden all the way on their Ather scooters. “Last year, in January, we saw that only one in ten folks who registered actually came, but it was such a great event. In fact, that’s why I thought we should do more than just launch a software stack this year. I wanted the Halo and Rizta to be ready for display,” Mehta told me. Of course, there were ‘convenient’ leaks on social media and a teaser advertising campaign, and people had started arriving at the KTPO grounds as early as eight in the morning. What surprised me was the number of children present; this was not just an outing for owners but for their families too. Little wonder, then, that Ather produced the Rizta with families in mind, and in a slide highlighting that, Mehta had included pictures of many of Ather’s longtime supporters with their families, quipping, “We’re not bachelors in a hostel anymore.”
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A family outing
A friend on X, Nimish Gupta, pinged me to say he was there too after he saw my post on the platform, and we finally met each other after many years of following one another. “I’m not here for the free food, dude,” he joked, “Genuinely, I wanted to see this for myself with the new scooter and the new smart helmet,” he told me as we chatted after the main event was over. Gupta, who owns a first-generation Ather 450, had just picked up the latest 450 Apex, which the company touts as their performance product. And after Mehta announced the ‘Halo,’ Ather’s new smart helmet that integrates with their scooter’s screen and was offered at a fifty percent discount for attendees at the Community Day, Gupta told me that he rushed to buy one, although he will have to wait until July to receive his helmet. I saw the ‘Halo,’ and it looks really cool. While I’m not a rider myself, I can’t wait to try out an integrated smart helmet and scooter.
Walking around with Gupta, I encountered many others who were attending the Community Day. Our discussions were not limited to Ather’s Rizta and Halo but also encompassed electric cars, the government’s FAME subsidy scheme for electric vehicles, software, and much more. In the adjacent halls, not only were there booths for games, many of which had lines over a hundred people deep, but also a dedicated space for fireside chats where more technical issues were discussed.
There was a genuine sense of community here, not just because of the event’s name but because there was excitement and a sense that the brand wanted to associate with its biggest fans. Sure, Royal Enfield has ‘Rider Mania,’ but that always had an Alpha Male feel to it in Goa; this felt different. It felt nerdy, it felt like Bengaluru, and it felt like family. And yes, it was crowded, and there were tons of influencers and media present, the food was ordinary, and it took forever to reach the hotel in Whitefield from the airport. But you know what? I left feeling happy. And for that, I tip my metaphorical cap to Ather. I haven’t witnessed anything like this before in India, and I doubt any other brand can replicate this now.
@kushanmitra is an automotive journalist based in New Delhi. He is one of the jury members on the ICOTY panel. Views are personal.
(Edited by Prashant)