When you miss the waves

Missed WAVES? Here's what (and what not) to feel FOMO about—from someone who skipped it too

- Shephali Bhatt

skipped the World Audio Visual Entertainment Summit (WAVES) 2025, organised by the Union ministry of information and broadcasting (I&B) and Maharashtra government, in Mumbai last week. Not because I wasn't interested, but because crowds have now started to unnerve me in ways I didn't expect. Part of it could be a post-pandemic rewiring—spaces that once felt electric now feel claustrophobic. But the other part is harder to name: a quiet exhaustion that comes from dealing with online mobs. When you have spent significant time being dogpiled in digital spaces, offline crowds begin to carry that same strange weight. You start scanning for threats, not connections.

Even as I sat out the first edition of this four-day summit connecting the Indian media and entertainment industry with the global who's who in the space, at the Jio World Convention Centre in BKC, it unfolded across my feed and in WhatsApp chats—enough to have me oscillating between quiet relief and sharp FOMO.