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Thursday, October 20, 2011

Clock Ticking

As the clock was ticking , the event date was coming near.

A few friends chipped in, and were really supportive of the idea and urged me not to back off now and the event should go on, no matter how much audience we may achieve but we should go on. Record or no record but this event should go on- Such was there willingness for the event that they even offered their monetary support on the promise that i would not tell any one that they have supported me in this event. While many people were looking to gain mileage and fame from this event, it was in a way strange to still find people who were willing to help in a positive manner without wanting their names to be made public.

Their influence and presence gave a boost to the campaign.

A friend offered to make creatives for the banner, poster and the stage back drop.
Another friend offered to print posters, and yet some other friend offered to print the stage backdrop.
A few chipped in with material support like wireless communication sets.

CBM college, circulated an email among their faculty,staff and students about our event.
This was a big favor by CBM college and proved to be in the greater interest of the event.

In the meanwhile. we also started to look for prospective sponsors for the event, as we now had the venue, the set target, and lesser security reasons.

"Karo Mumkin" seemed to be a better sponsor for this event as they have been promoting their brand image in that direction. On contacting them, it dawned on us that they require 8 weeks time to process any sponsorships and that the time was too short to sponsor the event.

Contacted a few more of the prospective clients and their outright reply was "NO" - without any reasons been given.

A few of the sponsors were of the view that if the record is not made, then it would be a bad name for the brand.

In a frenzy of last minute calls to a few advertising agencies on Thursday, 2 days before the event, some were really not in the mood to listen, some were on leave, and a few for appreciative of the idea but understandably the time was too short for any one to offer any type of sponsorship.

The event was picking up pace and more and more people were booking their tickets online, and we were getting in a better position to understand the number of people who would be coming to the event. Out facebook event wall was buzzing, people were excited and were restless to achieve the record, while still a few thought it was a waste of time while a few commented that holding national anthem event in the month of ramzan was a sin.

On 11th August, in the last moment contact thru a friend, an advertising agency agreed to offer a sponsor, enough to cover our event expenses. This is what we were really looking for. The agency agreed for a sponsor and gave an unofficial nod. The official confirmation was to come on the 12th August. We were releived that now we can have an event successfully whose expenses would be covered good enough.

WE were relieved.
We called a meeting of our volunteers and our official photographers "Frame Photography"
It emerged that people from "Frame Photography" were young budding photography students from SZABIST. They managed a team of around 20 photographers, boys and gals, who were to cover the entire event photography and video.

And now as we all know they did a superb job with both photography and video of the event.

Our volunteers had a good look at the venue and how they would manage the crowd. The scouts head, visited the venue and proposed us a parking and entry points and how he plan to manage parking. As we all knew Khadda market was a big nuisance when it comes to parking around the venue.

We were really worried about the parking scenario of our expected 10,000 participants.
To cover this we even took a round around the venue to see possible parking points, requested a few shopkeepers to close their shops early on the event date. Some agreed, some did not.
On the event date, the scouts seem to have managed the parking in a much efficient manner. We did not head any complains about parking spaces or any other mishap. This was a big achievement of the event itself, as the area around khadda market can get choked with traffic on a regular day let alone on a day where 10,000 people were to come at a stadium.