Have you ever faced a situation when you cooked a mouth watering scrumptious meal for yourself, but as you sat down to satisfy your hunger pangs you were joined by a couple of unexpected guests? As a result you had to share your gastronomic experience with them to the point where neither you nor your guests were satisfied. Sad isn’t it? I had a similar experience as I went to attend the Zenfestival organized by the leading motherboard and consumer notebook brand ASUS.
ASUS had promised a larger than life festival experience to its guests as through the event they aimed at launching their six new technological devices in the country. And with their last Zenphone 2 launch at Kingdom of Dreams being a humongous success, expectations were high from EO2 events who are a regular executing partner for ASUS. I was truly excited to see how will the event agency elevate themselves up a notch from their previous execution and with the venue of the Zenfestival being the JLN stadium in Delhi, I simply could not wait.
However, with so much hype in and around the event its execution turned out to be rather an abysmal affair. The entry to the venue of the Zenfestival was marked by crowd lining up outside in large numbers to get in, which is an unlikely sight to see considering it was a non-ticketed event. The demo zone however was stunningly designed and entry points to the stadium were neatly marked out and with installations, tattoo artists and volunteers present throughout the venue to help the attendees it was more than clear that EO2 had spent a lot of time designing the intricate aspects of the event.
Another highlight of the event was the stunning aerial performance that used a combination of LED, Drums, Lights and Music to create a long lasting impact. The anchor Cyrus Sahukar too, was on top of his game here with his quick witty comebacks and managed to tickle the funny bones of the audiences. However, even the dazzling Sonakshi Sinha could not save the event from drowning as the excessively long presentations from the ASUS team left the attendees wondering whether it was festival or a board meeting?
Another low for the event was the college crowd in large numbers that showed up at the last minute. Clearly the event would have been a near to perfect execution from team EO2 but the repetitive hooting and unnecessary remarks from the crowd were enough to make one cringe in despair. The nail on the coffin was the refreshment area that looked worse than the Rajeev Chowk metro station during office hours. Everyone had plates in their hands and very little idea of where to go?
An insider from the ASUS team reveals that the idea to invite college students was a last minute addition from ASUS and hence the overall execution of the event fell apart like a house of cards even after meticulous planning. The Zenfestival from ASUS was not a bad event at all however with their past events having set their own standards so high, this particular one failed to cross the bar even after trying way too hard. EO2 however aimed at creating something truly out of the box with the Zenfestival but the majority of their efforts went in vain with their intention to nail a perfect execution being so close yet so far.
