Demand for organising hassle-free, entertaining events pushing business of professional event managers

There was a time, when birthday parties involved hosting kids from neighbourhood at home for some cake and snacks, while weddings usually saw hassled family members running around making arrangements for a number of functions on the itinerary, starting from the venue to catering to decorations. Today parents and family members in Pimpri Chinchwad region are happily leaving the logistics and arrangements that go with organising weddings and parties to event managers. Besides traditional mass events like Sangeet, baby shower, bachelor parties, etc., PCMC-based event managers are also getting a lot of demand to organise corporate events "The business of event management has become very professional now," said Chetan Londe, director of Pune Hunagama events management group. "People have very little time to look into the logistics of organising any event, be it their kid's first birthday party, or their anniversary. With increased budgets, people don't mind spending the money for everything being managed professionally, so that they can enjoy occasion without hassles." Pune Hunagama, which started three years back, has been seeing 20 customers or so every month especially during the wedding season. "In the last five years or so, from small parties at home to big fat Indian weddings, people hire events management companies for both convenience and creativity," adds Londe. From just a few, the number of event management companies has more than doubled in the last three years in PCMC belt. "The industry is seeing a growth of 25 percent every year and the customers in PCMC region are opening up to involving event managers even for cultural events such as garba and other festival-related events. While the budgets for birthdays can start at Rs 25000 or so, weddings and receptions start after Rs 5 lakh and can run in up to Rs 30 lakh or even more," said Allwyn Kocheta, event manager at Sterling 3. Besides the reason of convenience, customers are looking for something unique and different from their parties. This is another reason for event managers pushing up the demand. Theme-based events catch the fancy of the customers today. "Customers want their events to be creative and unique," said Rupali Kulkarni of Kulkarni's event management company. "Immensely popular are children's theme-based birthday parties. From cartoon characters such as Chota Bheem, or Scooby Doo, to themes revolving around colours or subjects such as history or science are a hit. Parents find it easier to let us make these arrangements as we find the right entertainment group, ensure that children have fun, arrange costumes, masks, return gifts etc.," she said. FOOD FOR THOUGHT Food still remains a crucial part of an event. "It is no longer the only focus of an event," says Rocky Samuel Bhakara owner of Dynamites event management company. "Entertainment, venue, ambience. They all make a great impact today and young people's tastes too have changed. They want electro and trance music, they want international dancers and they want bold and unique decorations." Dr Swati Burute who threw a birthday party for her son says that having an event manager take care of things helps the family relax. "I am a gynecologist and have little time to go running around for decorations, food, invitations etc. Also it's a task to keep children, and adults entertained and engaged for four hours. The company helped us get a good anchor, had games and other activities planned for children, and fashion shows and dance performances for adults. This ensures that the party is a success, even if we pay a little more to the company," she explained. Corporate events today too are entrusted to event management companies, rather than being handled internally and bigger the event, the more number of event partners, who are part of the programme. Typically when big companies such as Tata Motors are hosting an event in their plant in Chakan, then their main event managing company attached to their headquarters will partner with us for the event organised here. From a time when HR team took care of events, this is a changed scenario today," said Bhakara. Commercial events too today have a host of activities starting from family outings for employees to promotional events and inaugurations etc. "Corporate events now involve a lot of planning. There are road shows, mall promotions, customer activities etc. And event management companies have to come up with creative activities to make these events stick in the minds of the consumers," said Rohit Kumar Jaiswal, assistant operations manager at Glance Events. "Companies have a budget of Rs 1 lakh or more depending on the size of the event. Many of them want posters, advertising as well as events to be handled by the same company, in which case we have a number of events with one client itself," said Sanjay Patil, proprietor of Yash events management company. www.dg3.dgevent.in