You may love him or love to hate him, but you cannot deny his mega-stardom! TIME magazine's 2010 TIME 100 Poll ranked him as the 13th most influential person in the world. In 2008, Newsweek named him one of the 50 most powerful people in the world. He was accorded the 'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres' by the French government for his 'exceptional career' in 2007. His statues have been installed in Madame Tussauds wax museum in London and New York, as well as in Grévin museum in Paris. The International Lunar Geographic Society honorarily christened a lunar crater after him. He is the brand ambassador for names like TAG Heuer, Nokia, Pepsi, Videocon, Airtel.
Shahrukh Khan is a global phenomenon. Hats off to Antar Showbiz for managing to bring a celebrity of this stature to our humble lackluster city. SRK Night at Army Stadium this Dec 10th was surely one of the biggest international events ever hosted in Bangladesh. Shahrukh's schedule and security seemed to be efficiently executed. However, the same cannot be said about the arrangement for audience.
To start with, ticket sale venues were not advertised well. Antar Showbiz was in controversy for not returning ticket prices the last time they tried to arrange SRK show but failed. This time, ticket prices and sale agents were announced very late. There were about a dozen events on Facebook and the largest one was created by some unrelated company called Off Track Events & Advertising. There was no published genuine source of information about the show. The Antar Showbiz website had the 'sit plan' but not many other useful details.
Not even the ticket mentioned the start or end time of the show. There was no conformity in the titles by which the show was referred to - a trivia that limits the expectation for the attention to details.
At the venue, finding out which entry line was for which gate was a challenge. There were no signboards, and volunteers and organizers were not able to help. There were no toilet facilities inside the stadium, and there were some 25000 people!
The stage was set at the long end when it would have made more sense to have the stage at the center of the elongated side. This would reduce the maximum distance to the stage and more people would have a closer view. And the stage needed to be at least elevated enough to have some view. One cannot blame the crowd for standing up to catch a glimpse of the stars as the stage was hardly viewable from seated position. No wonder even ‘ayeen-srinkhola protirokkha bahini’ members were seen standing on stacked chairs. You would think people with 20 years of event management experience would take these basic aspects into consideration.
The LCD TVs were not placed high enough either but then most of them were not working.
Neither the organizer chief Swapan Chowdhury nor the anchors had any scripts or anything worthwhile to say. We love getting on stage. So it's okay if a sponsor just wants to announce his juice brand or the organizer's personal family takes a bow. And the lady hostess, what was she saying or wearing? Did not find any glimpse of our culture in the show. Even the royal granddaughter did not find it unbecoming to get on stage with her boyfriend who appeared confused about what he does. Modesty would dictate she at least not publicly declare her political identity.
There was virtually no separation of the seating areas of different priced tickets. In addition, it seemed many people who did not really belong to the crowd entered the premises at the last moment. There was almost no checking and partial bamboo fences akin to cow hut were no good for keeping people in their place. How else can one explain the demeanor of the people who got on stage from the premium front rows?
No mention was made during the show of the celebrities who did not turn up, in spite of having their faces on the ticket - Kumar Biswajit being the prime example. The Facebook event above claimed Preity Zinta and the temptation crew. On the other hand, surprisingly there were no interviews of the star visitors even on media partner Boishakhi TV.
The real show did not start until 8 after being advised to go at 3. In the early hours, each performance (local artistes, hosts) had long boring gaps. That all changed once the Indian organizers took over. They did what the came to do, and did it well. Delivered 3 hours of non-stop well coordinated performances. The stars were overwhelmingly gallant in their effort to connect with the audience, speaking our language and talking our talk.
Service is not Bangladeshi businesses' forte and we as customers are accustomed to making do with whatever is offered. But the fatal let down of the show was of course not being able to view the stage even from the area of gold (Tk. 10,000/=) tickets. This led to random rowdiness and some chaos. It was sheer luck that things did not go out of control. God is surely with us. The show sidestepped any major mishap, just like 'Sonar Bangla' sidesteps becoming unlivable despite all ingredients there to make it so.
Related posts:
- The Daily star reports King of Bollywood entertains Dhaka.
- Prothom Alo puts the event news on the last page - Surely this was not such a small event. Mahabub Morshed analyses on Facebook.
- Review of a TV viewer : In transit: from fun to folly.
- NDTV , Bollywood Hungama and the likes are reporting the BD-SRK event apparently based on some opinionated and sensationalized online sources like Weekly Blitz-Shahrukh Khan's vulgar show in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka Guardian-Delhi’s cultural expansionism. It's all so sad. We made a fool of ourselves on stage, our hospitality took a backseat at the chance of scandalizing the guests, and the fundamentalist in many is awoken in different forms.
3 comments:
http://www.prothom-alo.com/detail/date/2010-12-09/news/114601
Mehrin I have to say you have captured all the right points in your blog...I would also like further add to this poor planning...the organisers falsely advertised that there would be plenty of drinks and so called food courts at this event. Which turned out to be fountain coke (people were expected to carry glasses of drinks to their seats in the crowd) and only 1 ice cream stand as the so called food court. Females were expected to share toilets with the men and just as the cops had no clue where the gates were no one had a clue where the toilets were either. It seems the objective of the organisers were only to make big money for themselves and flee. At one point I had asked one of the Elite private security agency guys what their job here was and his response was a blank clueless look and a "I don't really know".
Anonymous - Thanks for yor comment and reminding me of the toilet issue. I included it above.
That phone network was jammed was quite a inconvenience at times. Some people brought infants with them which I think should not have been the case. The list of disappointemnt is surely long. But tried to highlight the major ones above.
Thanks again.
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