Music fans were in for a treat on Wednesday afternoon as the sixth edition of the music festival, NH7 Weekender broke its 2015 line-up on Twitter. Musicians, music fans, music journalists, and Twitterati got a chance to announce artists through Tweets through the afternoon. Within an hour, the buzz had caught on and the official announcement hashtag #lineup2015 was trending as musicians and stand-up comics such as Vishal Dadlani, Dualist Inquiry, and Rohan Joshi announced line-up highlights such as AR Rahman, Flying Lotus, and Mark Ronson. Innovative, engaging, and full of suspense, festival fans on Twitter were super excited. Here’s a peek at the buzz around the line-up on Twitter:
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TIRUN Travel Marketing, the India representative of Celebrity Cruises, recently announced the exciting “Grass is Greener” campaign which highlights how holidays onboard the upscale vessels are prefect to satisfy those cravings for outdoor luxury. The endeavour is to engage new-to-cruise and new-to-brand consumers with a multi-layer fun campaign that also includes the trade partners. It turns the spotlight on the unique attributes of Celebrity Cruises such as the Lawn Club where real grass is grown onboard the vessel, along with stellar butler services to give guests a truly indulgent cruising experience. The campaign boldly and innovatively calls out the brand attributes of Celebrity Cruises in a way that harks to the luscious summertime and resplendent outdoors. Celebrity Cruises is running a digital contest to spur greater excitement with the hashtag, #GrassIsGreener. Participants need to post a selfie with anything green it and use the hashtag. 10 particpants with the best Selfie will stand a chance to win Celebrity Cruises merchandise and shopping vouchers every day for 10 days. Speaking on the campaign, Mrs Ratna Chadha, Chief Executive, TIRUN Travel Marketing and exclusive India representative of Celebrity Cruises said, “The campaign underlines the magnificent, most iconic and unmatched qualities of a Celebrity Cruises vacation. Guests can get their fill of a stylish outdoor experience which many seek in the summer. They can order picnics on a private verandah or bask in the exquisite lawns with exotic cocktails of their choice. The digital campaign has been crafted to further drive awareness about the inspiring experience that awaits vacationers on board this premium cruise line.” In order to make the campaign equally inviting for its trade partners, TIRUN Travel Marketing has launched a unique incentive programme. For every 10 staterooms they sell on board a Celebrity Cruises ship on double occupancy basis up to 31st December 2015, agents will get a free berth. This programme makes the ‘Grass is Greener’ campaign truly appealing to all stakeholders and guests!
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‘Papa CJ: Naked’ has been invited to represent India at the Shared History Festival in South Africa in September 2015. Shared History, which has become a regular feature on the South African cultural scene, is an annual festival that showcases the best of contemporary arts and culture from the Indian subcontinent in South Africa. The festival aims to explore the shared artistic bond and cultural history of the two countries and their recent pasts. Begun in 2007, the festival is brought to the country in collaboration with the High Commission of India in South Africa. Earlier this year ‘Naked’ received the rare honour of becoming the first ever solo show from India that was invited to showcase at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. Amongst the 550 plus shows at Australia’s largest cultural event, it was the only solo English show that was invited from all of Asia. Such international recognition is unprecedented for Indian stand-up comedy. In November 2014 Papa CJ was also invited to Malaysia to receive the award for Asia’s Best Stand-up Comedian. His show ‘Naked’ is also the only solo comedy show from India that will be showcasing at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in August 2015. The Fringe is the world’s largest arts festival with over 3000 shows across various genres. Papa CJ’s past international performances include over 2000 shows in more than 18 countries. He has taped a Showtime USA Stand-up Comedy Special with Russell Peters in Amsterdam and in the American TV show Last Comic Standing, he was placed in the top ten from over 3000 contestants across the world. His work has been broadcast on NBC, BBC, Comedy Central, Showtime, MTV, Paramount, The Comedy Channel, ITV and a host of other international networks. Papa CJ was also the first ever comedian from India to be invited to perform at the Just for Laughs Festival in Canada in 2009. Little wonder that Forbes Magazine has called Papa CJ ‘the global face of Indian stand-up’ and Toastmaster International called him one of the most influential comedians around the world.
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Gone are the days when clients were easily satisfied with simple and comfortable arrangements at their weddings. Today the clients heavily emphasize on elevating the level of their weddings to make everything appear larger than life, so that the attendees of the event take with them an experience to be treasured for a lifetime. But how can a wedding planner design the perfect experience quotient for a private social event was the subject of an interesting panel discussion at the International Convention of the Wedding Fraternity (ICWF) ’15. The session was chaired by Vandana Mohan, Founder, The Wedding Design Company,MitjaPrelovsek from Invisible.si, Arpit Vyas of Dishman Pharmaceutical and Culinary Designer MarutSikka. The discussion was moderated by Roshan Abbas, Managing Director at Encompass. At the beginning of the session MitjaPrelovsek delivered a special presentation where technology was used by him to elevate the experience quotient at public places. Mitja explained that his inspiration to create such experiences is driven by the memories and responses of humans. Roshan Abbas introduced the theme of the panel discussions by stating that all event planners are similar to dream catchers who make an intangible dream in a client’s head tangible by bringing it to reality. He asked the panelists, “However, to make a dream come true you need a team to help you. So how do you find a team to help you in creating such experiences?” To this Vanda Mohan responded by saying, “The industry today is very ‘me-centric’ and no one wants to share their work with others. But my way of working is always to collaborate with the best and the deliver the same to my client. I may have a certain sense of style and positioning of things but I would never hesitate to call someone like a SumantJayakrishnan to help me add value to my work. I strongly feel that the way forward in the industry is to collaborate and put aside this feeling of competitiveness and help each other to deliver that ultimate experience to our clients.” When asked upon what is a great experience for the panelists at weddings, MautSikka responded by saying, “Experience is all about using your senses, so be it the décor of the place that you are visiting or what you see or even the way food is laid out and served is part of an experience. It is also important to take care of the smallest element and details at weddings because the smallest of things gone wrong can end up giving bad experiences to your attendees.” Speaking on how to create digital experiences in a touch and feel economy like India, MitjaPrelovsek said, “Contrary to the popular belief, digital is not always using smartphones and iPad. What I do is to integrate digital technology with tangible properties so the idea is to make people forget the fact that there is a technology at play here. All I want is for them to just enjoy the moment.” When asked if technology is the sixth sense to create experience today? Mitja responded by explaining that experience should be designed in order to involve all the 5 senses, the more senses a technology brings alive the better experience will be created. There are times in a multi-agency pitch when the clients hears your ideas and thoughts but never responds back. When asked by Roshan Abbas on how to make the client respond to the agency in such situations, Arpit Vyas responded by saying, “You have to inspire the clients in your first brief itself. If you fail to do that you can never get him to respond and also as an agency one has to be able to bring and strike a relationship with the client from the get go. If an agency is able to achieve that then they will always get responses from clients.” Expanding further Vandana Mohan added, “Building the trust and the uniqueness of the concept are two things that are guaranteed to get you the job. If an agency pitches to a client a cut and paste concept that will be shown to them by 6 other agencies they can never get the job.”
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The 3rd edition of the International Convention of the Wedding Fraternity (ICWF) held at Hyatt Manesar from 31st July-1st August, pulled in an impressive crowd from the country’s weddings and social events segment. The platform brought together wedding planners, flower decorators, venues, caterers and miscellaneous service providers all under one roof. Here is a collection of some interesting moments we snatched from the event. Ankita-Chugh-from-Anikta-Chugh-Weddings-and-Lavish-Chopra Sanju-Simon-and-Himansh-Sharma-from-World-at-Glance Vikrant-Jain-Led-Solutions-and-Kartik-Chaudhary-Beats-Light-and-Sound Thomas-De-Bruyne Team-Turkey Tarsame-Mittal-TM-Talent-Management-and-Deepak-Choudhary-Event-Capital Surabh-Luthra-from-Niti-Luthra-Make-up-and-Ankit-Singhal-Hyatt-Manesar Samit-Garg-E-Factor-Entertainment-and-Manish-Malhotra Roshan-Abbas-Encompass Rochana-Pandya-and-Namit-Taluka-from-Taluka-Decorators Rishabh-Panchhi-from-Panchhi-Events-Tranbir-Sahni-White-Horse-Events-Management-and-Sachin-Talwar-Wow-events mung-Kumar-performing-live-set-design Mitja-Prelovsek-Invisible.si-Charu-Kashyap-E-Factor-and-Ravi-Reddy-Cylybrations-events Manika-Garg-VP-E-Factor-Entertainment-Tejas-Bhayani-Dipti-Shahani-and-Reema-Gupta-Red-Entertainment Hatice-Erksay-Raffles-Istanbul-and-Eda-Basaran-Crystal-Concepts Gitikka-Ganju-Dhar-Emcee Eda-Basaran,-Rajesh-Verma-CRI-Events,-Anurag-Batra,-Chairman-BW-Businessworld-and-Siddhartha
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Madison IES, the activation and experential unit of Madison OOH and Madison World has just completed another event – the launch of Eros Now, the online entertainment platform of Eros, where Bipasha Basu was the Chief Guest. The brief given to Madison IES was to position Eros Now as a new age digital paltiform and to achieve this, the logo was unveilled on a curved led screen of approx 28 feet width x 12 feet height and 2.8mm pitch. A mammoth logo entrance arch and a pink carpet presence went hand in hand with the theme of the event. Customized product stations were created to give enhanced experience to media & guests. Says Akshay Sharma, Marketing Head, Eros Now, “Madison really stepped up to the occasion to deliver what was expected from an event of this calibre. Their understanding of the brief to position Eros Now as a new age digital platform for today’s users reflected in every detail and at every stage of the event. The result was a blend of world class technology with flawless execution.” Saumen Roy, General Manager & Head, Madison IES, says, “Eros is an iconic brand and it is a matter of pride for us, having won the mandate from the pioneering global entertainment leader. We used a curved led and managed to setup this mammoth task in less than 10 hours. We look forward to working on many such assignments with Eros in the near future.”
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Extending their international association to India, Italian denim brand GAS partnered with Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India Pvt. Ltd. (HMSI) for Revfest where 5 new motorcycles including Honda’s flagship “Make in India” model CBR 650F were unleashed. This was a simultaneous launch on the 4th of August across 3 cities, Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore with GAS as the official style partner for the hosted fashion shows to showcase their Autumn/Winter 2015-16 collection. The Delhi edition, held at the PragatiMaidan, saw Bollywood superstar Akshay Kumar and TaapseePannu at the event. The association of GAS with Honda dates back to more than 15 years, where GAS has been the exclusive fashion sponsor of the Honda MotoGP teams alongside champions such as Mick Doohan, Valentino Rossi, Nicky Hayden and Dovizioso.Marc Marquez, the Honda rider and global brand ambassador for GAS, has been the MotoGP champion for 2013 and 2014 and the youngest MotoGP champion. GAS as a brand has been present in India since 2007. In India GAS has partnered with Reliance Brands Limited (part of Reliance Industries Group). The distribution network comprises 65 points of sale, including Flagship Stores in Delhi and Mumbai. Gas is also sold through third party e commerce platforms such as Myntra, Jabong , Amazon and Flipkart. “I am excited about this opportunity, which combines several elements that are particularly close to my heart. It is truly thrilling to showcase our collection in a prestigious context in a country that is fascinating, full of history and has a bright future, and in collaboration with a global giant with whom we share a long history of success,” said Claudio Grotto, Founder and President, Grotto S.p.a., GAS’ parent company. This launch partnership between GAS and Honda is just the first step to a long term relationship in India. GAS will retail a special limited edition capsule of GAS – Honda motorbiking clothing and accessories at the top 14 select Honda flagship stores. All GAS stand-alone stores will also have a dedicated showcase area to display the limited edition Honda-GAS biking capsule collection. Commenting on this launch, Keita Muramatsu, President and CEO, Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India Pvt. Ltd. (HMSI)said, “Honda’s association with GAS goes back a long way and across several geographies. There is an emotional relationship between a rider and his bike. So also with his clothing gear. We are delighted to bring this magic to India.”
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Besides digging deeper into their pockets, clients today are also digging deeper to achieve customized experiences at their weddings. With such differentiated demands, it often becomes challenging for wedding planners to deliver to an over demanding client while working with the same set of performers and service providers. To address the issue SamitGarg, E-Factor Entertainment and Karan Soorma, Cineyug chaired a panel discussion on the first day of the International Convention of the Wedding Fraternity ‘15. The panel discussion was moderated by Roshan Abbas, Encompass. Roshan Abbas began the session by highlighting how the clients who hire wedding planners today want to feel special and are looking for a level of exclusivity at their weddings and hence the demand for customized entertainment at weddings are increasing steadily. Karan Soormacommented, “It is very important to always keep the performers in the loop and always communicate what is being expected of them. Since we are an entertainment centric company and we keep on doing awards and entertainment based shows it makes it easier for us to convey such demands as the relationship that we have with artists helps us.“ Responding to this SamitGarg added, “For us it is very important to put together a storyboard and once we get the story right which typically stems from the need of the event and the clients it is only then when artists come in the picture.” Sharing his personal opinions Roshan Abbas explained that in some situations it is the clients who have a very unclear idea of what they want. Most of the times all they expect out of their event is to be bigger than before, better than before and louder than before. “There is also- cheaper than before”, commented Karan Soorma. When asked about the most bizarre demand for customized entertainment made to them, Karan Soorma responded by narrating an incident where an entire wedding venue had to be shifted from Goa to Dubai to accommodate the performance of RahatFateh Ali Khan. Another issue faced by the wedding planners today is determining when to agree for providing customized entertainment experience and when to refuse it? As Roshan Abbas asked if there was a ball park figure below which the wedding planners should not undertake the pain of customized entertainment. SamitGarg responded by saying, “If the budget of the wedding is below 50 lakhs customized entertainment efforts are not worth it.” Adding further and responding to the top three requests the panelists usually receive for customization at weddings? SamitGarg replied to the question by saying, “Short and impactful, affordable and never done before.” Speaking on the issue of ascertaining the credibility of a wedding planner who claims to have done customized entertainments? Samit added that due diligence is one practice a client can follow to sift credible wedding planners from non-credible ones. When asked by the audience if hotel venues are at a disadvantage compared to open venues when it comes to providing customized entertainment at weddings. Samit responded by saying that hotel venues were not at a disadvantage because of their venues itself but because of the fact that these venues come with a big list of Not-to-do’s, which is the primary reason why an event planner feels it is better to organize social events outside hotel halls and auditoriums.
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The International Convention of the Wedding Fraternity 2015 (ICWF) concluded with The Great Indian Wedding Awards (GIWA) on 1st August 2015. The ceremony took place at Hotel Hyatt, Manesar, to recognize and felicitate professionals from the wedding and social events sector in India. There were 20 award categories across which 68 metals were awarded to wedding planners, wedding photographers, wedding technologyservices, wedding venues, invitation designers, dance choreographers, wedding cake designers etc. Touchwood Entertainment Limited bagged the maximum number of awards. Here is a list of winners at GIWA 2015 across all categories: 1 Gold Best Design and Space Décor AbhishekArora Design Pvt. Ltd 2 Gold Best Design and Space Décor Poojan Decor 3 Silver Best Design and Space Décor gobananas 4 Bronze Best Design and Space Décor Gandhi Corporation 5 Gold Best Destination Wedding (International) MEW 6 Silver Best Destination Wedding (International) TMA – Touchwood Momentum Alliance 7 Bronze Best Destination Wedding (International) Tamarind Global 8 Gold Best Sangeet Event Labh Decorators & Artistry Alliance 9 Gold Best Sangeet Event Red Events and Hospitality 10 Silver Best Sangeet Event Touchwood Group 11 Bronze Best Sangeet Event Wedniksha Wedding Planners Pvt. Ltd. 12 Gold Best Destination Wedding (India) AnkitaChugh Weddings 13 Silver Best Destination Wedding (India) Red Events and Hospitality 14 Silver Best Destination Wedding (India) Touchwood Group 15 Bronze Best Destination Wedding (India) Prasang Events &EntertianmentPvt Ltd 16 Gold Best use of Flowers Momentum Group 17 Silver Best use of Flowers Poojan Decor 18 Bronze Best use of Flowers Touchwood Group 19 Gold Best Engagement / Ring Ceremony INvision Entertainment Pvt. Ltd 20 Silver Best Engagement / Ring Ceremony Wedding Umbrella 21 Bronze Best Engagement / Ring Ceremony a2z Events 22 Gold Best Upcoming Wedding Planner Artistry 23 Silver Best Upcoming Wedding Planner A New Knot 24 Bronze Best Upcoming Wedding Planner Wedding Umbrella 25 Gold Best Food art and Display Ott 26 Silver Best Food art and Display Ott 27 Bronze Best Food art and Display Foodlink Services India Pvt. Ltd. 28 Gold Best Wedding Reception gobananas 29 Silver Best Wedding Reception Touchwood Group 30 Bronze Best Wedding Reception Wedding Umbrella 31 Gold Wedding of the year (Overall) gobananas 32 Gold Wedding of the year (Overall) Red Events and Hospitality 33 Gold Wedding of the year (Overall) Spark Events 34 Silver Wedding of the year (Overall) MEW 35 Bronze Wedding of the year (Overall) TMA – Touchwood Momentum Alliance 36 Gold Best Wedding Moments (Still) Stories By Joseph Radhik 37 Silver Best Wedding Moments (Still) Ram Bherwani Productions 38 Silver Best Wedding Moments (Still) Stories By Joseph Radhik 39 Bronze Best Wedding Moments (Still) The Wedding House 40 Bronze Best Wedding Moments (Still) Ram Bherwani Productions 41 Gold Best Wedding Invites YS Design Studio 42 Silver Best Wedding Invites YS Design Studio 43 Bronze Best Wedding Invites YS Design Studio 44 Gold Best Wedding Moments (Video) Recall Pictures 45 Gold Best Wedding Moments (Video) Priyam Parikh 46 Silver Best Wedding Moments (Video) Recall Pictures 47 Silver Best Wedding Moments (Video) Phototantra 48 Bronze Best Wedding Moments (Video) Ram Bherwani Productions 49 Gold Best Mehendi Ceremony Wedding Umbrella 50 Silver Best Mehendi Ceremony Touchwood Group 51 Bronze Best Mehendi Ceremony Prasang Events &EntertianmentPvt Ltd 52 Gold Best Entertainment Design & Execution Labh Decorators and Artistry Alliance 53 Silver Best Entertainment Design & Execution Touchwood Group 54 Bronze Best Entertainment Design & Execution Wedniksha Wedding Planners Pvt. Ltd. 55 Gold Best Family Sangeet Choreography Laadi Dance 56 Silver Best Family Sangeet Choreography Twirls &Thumkas 57 Bronze Best Family Sangeet Choreography Laadi Dance 58 Gold Best Wedding Venue (Banquet / Farmland / Openland) HRH Group of Hotels 59 Silver Best Wedding Venue (Banquet / Farmland / Openland) HRH Group of Hotels 60 Bronze Best Wedding Venue (Banquet / Farmland / Openland) Shreelabh Decorators 61 Gold Best Wedding Hotel HRH Group of Hotels 62 Silver Best Wedding Hotel HRH Group of Hotels 63 Bronze Best Wedding Hotel Hyatt Regency Gurgaon 64 Gold Best use of Technology Ram Bherwani Productions 65 Silver Best use of Technology Ram Bherwani Productions 66 Bronze Best use of Technology Knownsense Studios 67 Gold Best Wedding Cake designs DevikaNarula Custom Cakes 68 Silver Best Wedding Cake designs DevikaNarula Custom Cakes
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Natura is well known to rig inspiring aerial acts and seemingly impossible engineering solutions. Natura is usually called on to a celebrations project to execute one of its exquisite and clean Aerial Performances. Though, this was the first time ever, an event production company brought Natura on board for a private celebrations project as rigging consultants. Natura’s role was not to rig anything themselves but to make sure all the elements of larger than life decor were rigged safely from the temporary hangar specially created for this event. The event designed by the famous celebrations designer Sumant boasted of Chandeliers from max. 24 ft in diameter to min. 10ft in diameter, Along with these, there were fabricated frames, Lighting trussing, Stage elements. All of these weighed in the range of min. 300kgs to max. 1 ton. Natura worked with various vendors from Lighting, LED, and Trussing to fabrication vendors to execute this larger than life event. Natura were brought on board as rigging consultants and were responsible for making sure all the flying elements of the larger than life decor, were rigged and flown safely from the hanger and the truss grid. It was Natura’s responsibility to work with technical vendors and fabricators to create a safe and beautiful setting for the larger than life experential celebration. The team faced multiple issues to begin with, first they had to start with convincing the riggers from vendor’s team to wear a harness before they go up on hanger to rig. Natura had to convince vendors to use proper rigging gear like spansets, steel wire rope, etc. More than once team Natura had stopped work when things went beyond acceptable parameters of risk. This definitely delayed the work but thanks to Aabhas, from Scoop Brand who made sure everyone understood the importance of safety. Every single rig which was done was double checked by 2 head riggers from Natura team, who at times, even changed rigs and re did things themselves. In the end it all turned out really well, No one had an iota of doubt, about any of the rigs. Everything was double and triple checked, before being finalized, which enabled the production team to focus more on other aspects of the event.
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