Other than this, my day, till about 3 pm, was uneventful. Then came the time when Mehez had to leave for the awards venue to help Natasha in the numbering of the seats. This is when I was solely left responsible for all the tickets. I was left in charge of so many tickets and was given the liberty to give out the tickets to the management, sponsors and celebrities as they requested, but to keep a note of the same for later referral. This was the moment when I felt very powerful, when I had people coming to me asking for tickets and I was actually in charge of giving them tickets. I was taking the responsibility of placing these people as per how I felt. Well, I wont boast too much, those people also saw the seating arrangement and demanded the best seats, but I was also told to keep a few good ones for last minute use, so I kind of had a little power.
Meanwhile I also saw some promotional material for next year's IIFA. If you guys dont already know it, the IIFA is happening in Toronto next year! The plans for the IIFA in Toronto are starting to take off now, and will start to materalize very soon. Even the people at Wizcraft are really looking forward to this, as its a big step for them. It will be first entry into the North American market. I can tell you from my perspective that the people in Toronto are also very enthusiastic about IIFA coming to Toronto next year, and to show what I am talking about, this is the promotional material.
Apart from the extra ticket distribution, I was still coordinating with a few clients for a pick up of their tickets till about 7.30 pm. And to make matters worse, our head office was being shut down and was being moved to the ticketing office so I had to move all the tickets and records to a safe place before I could head out to the awards. So I had to wrap up the whole mess that the ticketing office was in, make sure I take all the random pieces of paper with the littlest of the information and keep them safe. It was truely a mayhem with the head office people finally moving in. It used to be so peaceful in the ticketing office because barely anyone outside Wizcraft knew about it and the people in the head office rarely visited. So it was truely chaotic when the head office people moved in. Once that was finally done, I moved all the important stuff to my room and believe it or not, I took the tickets to my room and put them in the locker. I felt like I was carrying something so valuable that I had to protect it to the best of my ability. I didnt have so many tickets, but there were a lot more post party invites that I had put in the locker.
Finally, by 8 pm I was able to come to my room and start getting ready for the awards. The last bus for the awards was going to leave at 9 pm, with 5 people in it, Manali, Malvika, Amulya, Sunny (the travel arrangement guy) and myself. We had a very special limo for ourself, so special that it was a mini bus :P with enough room for us to party it up in the bus itself. Needless to say, we were always under heavy security cover at the hotel and around it as well, but our little party bus to the awards was not. There was not even a cop bike riding around us. We did see a cop car or bike pull up near our bus and we though they would be our escort, but they would just continue in their own direction. But the whole way to the awards venue was heavily guarded by cops and the military and so was the venue. I was so proud to carry my Wizcraft accredition card around, I could go literally anywhere with that. But it didnt give me the right to go backstage. Anyway, I was too late at the venue to go backstage anyway. I simply went into the venue and went and sat on the stairs by Mohd Kaif, Jayasuriya and the Sen sisters (Raima and Riya). Good for me that Kaif (not Katrina!) actually recognized me when I sat there and said hi to me (I had a little chat with him in the elevator after giving him his invites the previous day). I think I personally made some good cricketing connections (I had also had some nice talks with Kiran More for the past 2 days and was talking to him occassionally as I bumped into him). Maybe now, I can finally try out for the India cricket team ;)
Sitting at the awards was a great experience, but I could not take any pictures or record anything, as it would not be professional for me to do that. But my best moment came when Joyeeta mam (lady responsible for managing all the celebrities) called me down to her and told me that I will be escorting Zeenat Aman to the awards stage when she gets the award. Till her name was called, I was made to sit in the MIP area where all the celebrities were sitting. I was sitting right next to Zeenat Aman's son, and beside him was Zeenat Aman herself and beside her was Bipasha Basu and beside her was the Sri Lankan PM (or President, I am not sure). On the other side, there was Fardeen Khan and Suzzane Khan. I didnt turn around to see who was sitting behind me, because I was excited enough to be seated amongst these people. While sitting there I also watched Saif Ali Khan perform, and as soon as the song "Twist" came on, I could see Bipasha Basu jumping in her seat and moving to the beats, it is just fun to see how they also enjoy the same things as we do.
And then finally came the time when I had to escort Zeenat Aman down to the stage. I was truely excited about it, I checked myself if I looked presentable. But to my surprise, she got up before me and started walking and reached the staris ahead of me. Then she turned around to me and said, "the stairs are coming my dear, you will have to help me down" and I replied, "thats what I am here for". After helping her down the stairs, I just ran up and went and sat with my people. cant say how excited I was about this moment, and I can still clearly remember it. I will surely put a clipping of it if I see myself on the videos.
After that what was left was just one major performance, by Hrithik Roshan. I have to say watching this guy perform live is an awesome experience. Not on tv, which is all edited with the zooms and the effetcs, live performance is what is really crazy. This guy can really dance and his performance is perfect to the core. He dedicates himself totally and it shows in his performance. After witnessing his performance, I headed back with the hospitality team, I didnt even stay to watch the final 4 awards because it would have got very crowded to head back if I waited till the end of the ceremony. So I went back and when I arrived at the hotel, the decor was totally different. The whole hotel was transformed to a club! We reached there, we all changed back and headed to grab some food for ourselves. After the dinner, we headed to this place called Chutney within the hotel where there was a private wizcraft party happening and we partied there till 6 in the morning. Thats when the DJ started to stop the music. Although I am told that the party went on in the rooms, and I was even invited, I decided to call it a day and go get some rest. I had planned to get some touristing done next day and for that I had to get some sleep!
Overall, I think my experience at IIFA Colombo was amazing and I got a taste of the Sri Lankan hospitality! The last 3 days were the most hectic since I started my internship, but after all was done, I was really missing that tension and excitement. I had got used to this constant adrenaline pumping through me, that I missed it! And before I end this part of the blog, a glimpse of what the party at the hotel looked like.
No comments:
Post a Comment