Scaling a sacred experience for millions.
Digital darshan ticketing for Srisailam, that grew into a statewide platform.
- Role
- Associate Product Manager
- Team
- 3 PMs, 2 UX, 3 Devs, 5 stakeholders
- Company
- 9and9 · 2022–2023
Most products start with a signed contract. This one started with a bet.
Build the whole platform for free, and let the product make the case. The free pilot was the strategy.
context
Every ticket was bought in person, on the day, in a 3 to 6 hour queue.
Srisailam is one of 23,000+ temples under AP Endowments, and one of the most heavily trafficked. The crowd-management landscape around it was a patchwork of half-solutions, and none of them fixed the queue.
the problem
Three problems.
Fraud & revenue loss
Manual paper tickets created untraceable leakage. Fakes were easy, and impossible to audit.
The thundering herd
With no digital slotting, pilgrims arrived in waves. Overcrowding turned dangerous at peak.
Offline-first or nothing
2G and 3G at the temple site meant the flow had to hold up with almost no signal.
the approach
What I owned, and the routes we ruled out.
owned end to end
- North Star
- Booking conversion rate
- Health metric
- Task completion rate
Devotees Portal
9 modules
Bookings
darshans, sevas, accommodation
Donations
e-Hundi, AnnaPrasadam, GoSamrakshana
e-Store
prasadam, publications, products
Streaming
Paroksha Seva live, festivals
Media Room
events, daily updates, press
Volunteer
queue + AnnaPrasadam service
Temple Trivia
gallery, mythology, history
Support
24/7 info, ticketing, live chat
Devotee Mgmt
profile, history, settings
We weighed four routes, a Maps feature, a kiosk, a website revamp, and a mobile app, before committing to mobile-first and scoping everything around the one job that mattered: booking a darshan.
the scope
Four portals, one ecosystem.
The platform shipped as four interlocked surfaces. Each had a different audience and a different job, but they shared one source of truth.
Guest Portal
Discovery surface: temple info, sevas, donations, online booking, media room. The way most people first meet the platform.
Devotees Portal
Booking history, e-store, streaming, devotee management. Where a one-time visitor becomes a returning user.
Temple Management
Profiling, pilgrim services, assets, inventory, accounts. Each temple runs its own operation through this.
Endowments Portal
The rollup. Revenue, audits, MIS reports across all temples under AP Endowments.
in their words
Before six personas, every pilgrim’s view.
the empathy map
Think
- Why is this so hard?
- This is taking too long.
- Such an outdated process.
- This is inconvenient.
Do
- Wait in line for hours
- Cut the line
- Use third-party agents
- Argue with security
Feel
- Overwhelmed
- Confused
- Impatient
- Irritated
- Nervous
- Unimpressed
Say
- “I wish this was simpler.”
- “This could be online.”
- Hesitates to mention problems
- Waits reluctantly
the six personas it shaped
“At my age, I need someone to help me book online and with my wheelchair. These new technologies are so confusing for me.”
Raghava
72 · Local veteran
“I can't tell if my booking was successful or failed because everything is in red and green. I never know if there are tickets available.”
Tulasi
34 · Housewife
“I visit every month, but during festivals it's impossible to get tickets. We regulars should have some priority.”
Aruna
57 · Local pilgrim
“Coordinating multiple special ceremonies is complex enough, and now I have to manage everything through this new digital system.”
Sastry
62 · Priest coordinator
“During peak seasons I'm overwhelmed with queries. I need faster access to booking details to help everyone.”
Parvathi
47 · Customer service
“These fake tickets are harder to spot. We need a faster way to verify, especially across multiple entrances.”
Gopinath
57 · Security agent
what didn’t work
Three crowd-control ideas failed before one stuck.
What we tried
Virtual queue (waiting room)
A 7-minute wait threshold triggered 50%+ drop-off. People refreshed and lost their place.
Batch releases + upsells
Adding post-booking steps (accommodation, meals) spiked abandonment from friction fatigue.
Pre-registration with assigned windows
Worked in testing, failed in the field: elderly and low-literacy users didn't return for their window.
What stuck
Real-time inventory + traffic-light status
✓ shippedAvailable / Filling Fast / Sold Out, mapped to the IRCTC model people already trusted.
the solution
Build something worthy of 20 years of faith.
“I have never missed a single Mahashivaratri in 20 years. If I lose my slot because of some mistake on a phone screen, how do I face my god?”
That one line reframed the project. So the ticket now generates offline, before payment even confirms. Faith first, the receipt second.
the home
Two states, one shelf.
Service-first when pilgrims came to plan, live-content-first when they came to watch. The same persistent service rail anchors the bottom either way.
Devotee Services
Darshanam, Pratyaksha & Paroksha Seva, Accommodation, surfaced as cards.
Live + Trending
Srisaila TV live darshan, Vedic content, with the same service rail beneath.
the booking flow
Four steps to a darshan ticket.
Date and slot, personal details, review the rules, pay. The whole booking was built to survive 2G and to forgive the first-time digital user. The QR ticket generates before payment even confirms.
01
Choose date & service
A traffic-light heatmap shows real-time slot availability at a glance.
02
Enter details
Basic info only, with auto-fill for returning pilgrims.
03
Review
Dress code, rules, and visit details, confirmed before paying.
04
Pay & download
UPI, card, or net banking. The QR ticket generates offline.
eighteen services, one platform
Booking a darshan was the front door. Behind it, the admin tooling I designed managed every revenue stream and asset class the temple ran.
the platform I owned, end to end
End to end: pick a slot, check out, keep the record, the one job that mattered.
the outcome
From a free pilot to a statewide platform.
$0.0M+
revenue generated
0
temples onboarded statewide
0K
users served
0 → live
first end-to-end digital booking
200 → 100
support queries a day
1 → 174
temples, after the free pilot
The conversion rate went from zero (every ticket was physical) to a working digital flow on 2G, and the model was adopted by the Andhra Pradesh Endowments Department across 174 temples.
reflection
What I’d carry into the next one.
Scope discipline ships products.
Saying no is hardest with the features you believed in. We cut the upsells to protect the one thing pilgrims came for: the darshan ticket.
Staff experience is the user experience.
A confused staff member at the gate undoes everything a smooth booking flow built. Operations should be in the room from week one.