PuttingScenes
Designing the Pulse of Bangalore’s Social Scene
Because your group chat deserves better than “What’s the plan macha?”
What’s PuttingScenes?
PuttingScenes started as a few WhatsApp groups where we shared fun events happening in Bangalore. It blew up fast. Within weeks, we had 6–7 groups with nearly 1,000 people each, all looking for the next scene. That energy led to something bigger a full-blown social events + ticketing platform built for Bangalore’s hyper-social crowd.
The name “PuttingScenes” is a nod to the local slang for “Let’s put a scene, macha!” which perfectly captured our mission: make plans easier, fun, and spontaneous.
My Role?
I was the sole product designer, owning everything from:
Design systems and UI foundations
Partner integrations (like secret menus)
UX for booking and events
Shipping designs directly with 1 engineer and 1 founder
Impact?
40,000+
Happy Users
92%
Users completed booking in first go
64%
Repeat users booking events
The Problem #1
When users landed on our WhatsApp groups, they were greeted with everything : events for today, tomorrow, even next month were all dumped into a single scroll.
This might work for hardcore scrollers, but for most people, the intent was simple:
“Bro, what’s happening this weekend?”
asd
But with messages getting buried and no real structure, people would miss events, ask for the same links again, or just give up.
The Insight
People didn’t think in categories. They thought in time-based intent:
“Tonight after work” → weekday hangs
“This weekend” → proper plans with friends
“Sunday” → recovery gigs & brunches
We realized filters should match mindset, not just metadata.
The Solution
We designed a tappable filter bar at the top of the event feed, optimized for mobile and action-first users:
Today
Tomorrow
Later in the week
The default view would smartly shift based on the day (e.g. "This Weekend" took over on Fridays).
The Problem #2
Before we built our own booking system, users had to bounce between external platforms — each with their own account logins, clunky flows, and payment pages.
It wasn’t just annoying, it was costly: asd
We lost users mid-journey
We couldn’t track conversions
We couldn’t control the brand experience
We couldn’t earn from bookings
And when something went wrong, users still blamed us.
We needed to own the booking experience, but without making it feel like a checkout process.
The Solution
We stripped it down to the essentials:
Page 1: Choose Seats
Show remaining availability
Let people pick number of spots
Page 2: Confirm & Book
Name + Phone (auto-filled if they booked before)
Optional: special request field (used for dietary prefs or birthday notes)
Book Now CTA
We kept it fast, legible, thumb-friendly and optimized for 1-hand use.
Impact
94%
Completion rate from Page 1 to confirmation
42 seconds
Avg time to complete booking
~20%
Users booked events again within 7 days
Designing the Secret Menu:
Turning Bookings into Membership Perks
We wanted PuttingScenes to be more than just a place to book events, we wanted to create brand loyalty.
So we asked ourselves:
What if your ticket also gave you access to things the average diner couldn’t get?
That idea became the Secret Menu, a gated feature that let our paid members access experimental dishes and cocktails at some of Bangalore’s most interesting spots.
How It Worked
We partnered with a handful of forward-thinking restaurants and bars:
Naru Noodle Bar – Ramen specials & late-night gyoza
Klaa Kitchen – South Indian × European crossover plates
Spirit Forward – Off-menu cocktails
Each venue created limited-run items, only visible to users with a PuttingScenes membership.
The Experience
The secret menu wasn’t buried in some settings page. We embedded it into the core experience. Restaurants loved it too, it let them test new items with a curated, feedback-ready audience.
When members opened their homepage, a “Secret menu” appeared
Menus were presented like drop pages, beautifully photographed, with cheeky names
Book a table → flash your digital pass → unlock the dish
Impact
Helped us test paid subscriptions and attach value to them
Restaurants started approaching us for collabs
Users loved the feeling of being part of something exclusive
Why It Mattered
This wasn’t about food, it was about creating a culture of insider access. PuttingScenes started as a WhatsApp group. Now, it was starting to feel like a membership to the city’s underground food, events, and classes included.
PuttingScenes
Designing the Pulse of Bangalore’s Social Scene
Because your group chat deserves better than “What’s the plan macha?”
What’s PuttingScenes?
PuttingScenes started as a few WhatsApp groups where we shared fun events happening in Bangalore. It blew up fast. Within weeks, we had 6–7 groups with nearly 1,000 people each, all looking for the next scene. That energy led to something bigger a full-blown social events + ticketing platform built for Bangalore’s hyper-social crowd.
The name “PuttingScenes” is a nod to the local slang for “Let’s put a scene, macha!” which perfectly captured our mission: make plans easier, fun, and spontaneous.
My Role?
I was the sole product designer, owning everything from:
Design systems and UI foundations
Partner integrations (like secret menus)
UX for booking and events
Shipping designs directly with 1 engineer and 1 founder
Impact?
40,000+
Happy Users
92%
Users completed booking in first go
64%
Repeat users booking events
The Problem #1
When users landed on our WhatsApp groups, they were greeted with everything : events for today, tomorrow, even next month were all dumped into a single scroll.
This might work for hardcore scrollers, but for most people, the intent was simple:
“Bro, what’s happening this weekend?”
asd
But with messages getting buried and no real structure, people would miss events, ask for the same links again, or just give up.
The Insight
People didn’t think in categories. They thought in time-based intent:
“Tonight after work” → weekday hangs
“This weekend” → proper plans with friends
“Sunday” → recovery gigs & brunches
We realized filters should match mindset, not just metadata.
The Solution
We designed a tappable filter bar at the top of the event feed, optimized for mobile and action-first users:
Today
Tomorrow
Later in the week
The default view would smartly shift based on the day (e.g. "This Weekend" took over on Fridays).
The Problem #2
Before we built our own booking system, users had to bounce between external platforms — each with their own account logins, clunky flows, and payment pages.
It wasn’t just annoying, it was costly: asd
We lost users mid-journey
We couldn’t track conversions
We couldn’t control the brand experience
We couldn’t earn from bookings
And when something went wrong, users still blamed us.
We needed to own the booking experience, but without making it feel like a checkout process.
The Solution
We stripped it down to the essentials:
Page 1: Choose Seats
Show remaining availability
Let people pick number of spots
Page 2: Confirm & Book
Name + Phone (auto-filled if they booked before)
Optional: special request field (used for dietary prefs or birthday notes)
Book Now CTA
We kept it fast, legible, thumb-friendly and optimized for 1-hand use.
Impact
94%
Completion rate from Page 1 to confirmation
42 seconds
Avg time to complete booking
~20%
Users booked events again within 7 days
Designing the Secret Menu:
Turning Bookings into Membership Perks
We wanted PuttingScenes to be more than just a place to book events, we wanted to create brand loyalty.
So we asked ourselves:
What if your ticket also gave you access to things the average diner couldn’t get?
That idea became the Secret Menu, a gated feature that let our paid members access experimental dishes and cocktails at some of Bangalore’s most interesting spots.
How It Worked
We partnered with a handful of forward-thinking restaurants and bars:
Naru Noodle Bar – Ramen specials & late-night gyoza
Klaa Kitchen – South Indian × European crossover plates
Spirit Forward – Off-menu cocktails
Each venue created limited-run items, only visible to users with a PuttingScenes membership.
The Experience
The secret menu wasn’t buried in some settings page. We embedded it into the core experience. Restaurants loved it too, it let them test new items with a curated, feedback-ready audience.
When members opened their homepage, a “Secret menu” appeared
Menus were presented like drop pages, beautifully photographed, with cheeky names
Book a table → flash your digital pass → unlock the dish
Impact
Helped us test paid subscriptions and attach value to them
Restaurants started approaching us for collabs
Users loved the feeling of being part of something exclusive
Why It Mattered
This wasn’t about food, it was about creating a culture of insider access. PuttingScenes started as a WhatsApp group. Now, it was starting to feel like a membership to the city’s underground food, events, and classes included.
PuttingScenes
Designing the Pulse of Bangalore’s Social Scene
Because your group chat deserves better than “What’s the plan macha?”
What’s PuttingScenes?
PuttingScenes started as a few WhatsApp groups where we shared fun events happening in Bangalore. It blew up fast. Within weeks, we had 6–7 groups with nearly 1,000 people each, all looking for the next scene. That energy led to something bigger a full-blown social events + ticketing platform built for Bangalore’s hyper-social crowd.
The name “PuttingScenes” is a nod to the local slang for “Let’s put a scene, macha!” which perfectly captured our mission: make plans easier, fun, and spontaneous.
My Role?
I was the sole product designer, owning everything from:
Design systems and UI foundations
Partner integrations (like secret menus)
UX for booking and events
Shipping designs directly with 1 engineer and 1 founder
Impact?
40,000+
Happy Users
92%
Users completed booking in first go
64%
Repeat users booking events
The Problem #1
When users landed on our WhatsApp groups, they were greeted with everything : events for today, tomorrow, even next month were all dumped into a single scroll.
This might work for hardcore scrollers, but for most people, the intent was simple:
“Bro, what’s happening this weekend?”
asd
But with messages getting buried and no real structure, people would miss events, ask for the same links again, or just give up.
The Insight
People didn’t think in categories. They thought in time-based intent:
“Tonight after work” → weekday hangs
“This weekend” → proper plans with friends
“Sunday” → recovery gigs & brunches
We realized filters should match mindset, not just metadata.
The Solution
We designed a tappable filter bar at the top of the event feed, optimized for mobile and action-first users:
Today
Tomorrow
Later in the week
The default view would smartly shift based on the day (e.g. "This Weekend" took over on Fridays).
The Problem #2
Before we built our own booking system, users had to bounce between external platforms — each with their own account logins, clunky flows, and payment pages.
It wasn’t just annoying, it was costly:
We lost users mid-journey
We couldn’t track conversions
We couldn’t control the brand experience
We couldn’t earn from bookings
And when something went wrong, users still blamed us.
We needed to own the booking experience, but without making it feel like a checkout process.
The Solution
We stripped it down to the essentials:
Page 1: Choose Seats
Show remaining availability
Let people pick number of spots
Page 2: Confirm & Book
Name + Phone (auto-filled if they booked before)
Optional: special request field (used for dietary prefs or birthday notes)
Book Now CTA
We kept it fast, legible, thumb-friendly and optimized for 1-hand use.
Impact
94%
Completion rate from Page 1 to confirmation
42 seconds
Avg time to complete booking
~20%
Users booked events again within 7 days
Designing the Secret Menu:
Turning Bookings into Membership Perks
We wanted PuttingScenes to be more than just a place to book events, we wanted to create brand loyalty.
So we asked ourselves:
What if your ticket also gave you access to things the average diner couldn’t get?
That idea became the Secret Menu, a gated feature that let our paid members access experimental dishes and cocktails at some of Bangalore’s most interesting spots.
How It Worked
We partnered with a handful of forward-thinking restaurants and bars:
Naru Noodle Bar – Ramen specials
Klaa Kitchen – South Indian × European crossover plates
Spirit Forward – Off-menu cocktails
Each venue created limited-run items, only visible to users with a PuttingScenes membership.
The Experience
The secret menu wasn’t buried in some settings page. We embedded it into the core experience. Restaurants loved it too, it let them test new items with a curated, feedback-ready audience.
When members opened their homepage, a “Secret menu” appeared
Menus were presented like drop pages, beautifully photographed, with cheeky names
Book a table
Flash your digital pass
Unlock the dish
Impact
Helped us test paid subscriptions and attach value to them
Restaurants started approaching us for collabs
Users loved the feeling of being part of something exclusive
Why It Mattered
This wasn’t about food, it was about creating a culture of insider access. PuttingScenes started as a WhatsApp group. Now, it was starting to feel like a membership to the city’s underground food, events, and classes included.